Are you in this video?

If so, and you ran by this guy screaming for help, you have failed at life.

Uninstall, now please.

ISPs have set themselves up to the be the Robber Barons of the 21st Century.

Comcast has levied a threat that they will throttle Netflix streaming unless a toll is paid.

While this may be psychosomatic, some Comcast customers have already appeared on Twitter wondering why their Netflix has stopped working.

This is why people have been clamoring for Net Neutrality.

This is why the internet needs to be regulated like a utility. No one company should  hold hostage content and access you have already paid for in an effort to bloat their own profits.

This will be the third show I will go out of my way to see.

How do you know?

IT’S RAINING BLOOD

There are few things as precious as internet memes. I wonder what they did for similar fun in Victorian times?

It just doesn't land on Plymouth Rock, it fucks that rock up!

Sagan Claus. I like that.

I speak of the internet, which is truly an engine of awesome. Think for a moment how it enriches your life, bequeaths knowledge, entertains and interconnects.

It is a device for which none compares.

It is also a threat, a disruption of power and status quo. It removes control from those that have traditionally been able to direct the populace. Yes, it may sound a foolishly romantic notion, but it’s true. One only has to look at how hard governments like China or those in the Middle East fight so hard to maintain a fragile, fleeting control over the content and ideas stored in simple ones and zeros, spread globally across an ephemeral network of computers.

The assault on the internet by government and corporate interest, to regain and assert control over content and ideas has been in overdrive for the past few years. First ACTA (which is still floating out there) and now COICA.

In short, COICA allows the US Attorney General to create two lists. One is a blacklist that must be enforced by ISPs. The other is a suggested list that web sites could end up on, for any reason or bias, that ISPs are recommended to block. This is censorship at its worst.

COICA was unanimously passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on November 18th.

Unanimously.

That word has never looked uglier.

Enter one Senator Ron Wyden (D) of Oregon. He may very well have saved the internet by placing a hold on the pending bill. I have no idea what Wyden’s record is on anything else, but for this act he should be thanked.

It’s alarming just how close we run to losing one of the most fantastic methods of communication developed by our species. In the words of Maxwell Smart, “Missed us by that much.”

While Simon Singh won his day in court, many others continue to suffer under the draconian libel laws of the UK.

In the US we were lucky to see a bill passed this year that specifically protected us against libel suits emanating from overseas. However, many other countries still face the chilling effect of being sued in an English court.

Free speech is essential for journalists and bloggers to speak out against nonsense and pseudoscience. This is why everyone needs to join in this most worthy of causes.

Here’s the message that needs to be pushed:

The Mass Libel Reform Blog – Fight for Free Speech!

This week is the first anniversary of the report Free Speech is Not for Sale, which highlighted the oppressive nature of English libel law. In short, the law is extremely hostile to writers, while being unreasonably friendly towards powerful corporations and individuals who want to silence critics.

The English libel law is particularly dangerous for bloggers, who are generally not backed by publishers, and who can end up being sued in London regardless of where the blog was posted. The internet allows bloggers to reach a global audience, but it also allows the High Court in London to have a global reach.

You can read more about the peculiar and grossly unfair nature of English libel law at the website of the Libel Reform Campaign. You will see that the campaign is not calling for the removal of libel law, but for a libel law that is fair and which would allow writers a reasonable opportunity to express their opinion and then defend it.

The good news is that the British Government has made a commitment to draft a bill that will reform libel, but it is essential that bloggers and their readers send a strong signal to politicians so that they follow through on this promise. You can do this by joining me and over 50,000 others who have signed the libel reform petition at
http://www.libelreform.org/sign

Remember, you can sign the petition whatever your nationality and wherever you live. Indeed, signatories from overseas remind British politicians that the English libel law is out of step with the rest of the free world.

If you have already signed the petition, then please encourage friends, family and colleagues to sign up. Moreover, if you have your own blog, you can join hundreds of other bloggers by posting this blog on your own site. There is a real chance that bloggers could help change the most censorious libel law in the democratic world.

We must speak out to defend free speech. Please sign the petition for libel reform at
http://www.libelreform.org/sign

I saw this come across Twitter weeks ago and didn’t pick up on it. More’s the shame as the song is awesome.