Inverse: Can Hypergiant Actually Build Intergalactic Internet?. “Hypergiant, a company better known for its A.I. software, has turned its attention to expanding the world’s largest computer network beyond the Earth. The moon, Mars, and beyond could get connected to all the musings and memes accessible on the world wide web, using a relay network of satellites that will also host an archive of human knowledge. It may sound like a rather pointless endeavor — who lives on the moon? — but that could soon change.”
internet
New York Times: Legal Shield for Websites Rattles Under Onslaught of Hate Speech
New York Times: Legal Shield for Websites Rattles Under Onslaught of Hate Speech. “When the most consequential law governing speech on the internet was created in 1996, Google.com didn’t exist and Mark Zuckerberg was 11 years old. The federal law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, has helped Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and countless other internet companies flourish.”
Poynter: The scary trend of internet shutdowns
Poynter: The scary trend of internet shutdowns. “Around the world, governments have been turning to network shutdowns with increasing frequency to quell unrest and suppress the spread of rumors and fake news. But there is no empirical evidence that proves this tactic is effective, and activists and journalists alike have raised concerns over the catastrophic side effects these shutdowns often have on communities.”
Digital Trends: About a third of U.S. households lack broadband internet. 5G may change that
Digital Trends: About a third of U.S. households lack broadband internet. 5G may change that. “A new report that addresses the topic of broadband internet access in the United States features a startling statistic: Almost a third of U.S. households do not have access to a broadband internet connection.”
Pew: A Week in the Life of Popular YouTube Channels
Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): A Week in the Life of Popular YouTube Channels. “The YouTube ecosystem produces a vast quantity of content. These popular channels alone posted nearly a quarter-million videos in the first seven days of 2019, totaling 48,486 hours of content. To put this figure in context, a single person watching videos for eight hours a day (with no breaks or days off) would need more than 16 years to watch all the content posted by just the most popular channels on the platform during a single week. The average video posted by these channels during this time period was roughly 12 minutes long and received 58,358 views during its first week on the site.”
Phys .org: The internet is surprisingly fragile, crashes thousands of times a year, and no one is making it stronger
Phys .org: The internet is surprisingly fragile, crashes thousands of times a year, and no one is making it stronger. “Given it is mission-critical for much of the world’s economic and social life, shouldn’t the net be designed to withstand not just minor hiccups but also major catastrophes, and to prevent small problems turning into much bigger ones? Governing bodies such as the EU Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) have long warned of the risk of such cascading incidents in causing systemic internet failure. Yet the internet remains worryingly fragile.”
Quartz: The early internet is breaking—meet the people saving it
Quartz: The early internet is breaking—meet the people saving it. “In 1999, Olia Lialina taught web design in Germany. In class, she’d use amateur sites as examples of what not to do. But then, Lialina realized that those pages were disappearing. So she began to collect, and, eventually, study them to understand the values embedded within the early web’s ever-present starry night backgrounds, Mail Me buttons, and welcome signs.”
