Hulk Hogan is not one of my favourite people, but I’m glad he won his case against Gawker. We might not care much about the privacy of a larger-than-life celebrity, but we should all care about the example this case sets for our own privacy.
Gawker posted a video of Hogan having sex with his friend’s wife. It’s tawdry, salacious and appeals to the basest of human instincts. So of course it drew millions of viewers.
A Florida jury decided this was a violation of Hogan’s privacy and awarded him $115 million.
In Canada, Hogan would have had a clear-cut case — you can’t distribute someone’s private image without their consent. Although this law is aimed at protecting young people from cyberbullying, there is no reason why it wouldn’t apply to celebrities as well.
In the U.S. there is a grey area that can be argued. Hogan’s actions took place in a private setting and he claims he no idea that he was being recorded. Still, he is a public figure who often reveals details of his private life for self-promotion.
Gawker’s lawyers have argued that within this context, it is reasonable for other parts of Hogan’s life to be revealed.
Within the letter of the law, Gawker may have a good point. The case is going to appeal, so we will be hearing a lot more about a public person’s right to privacy.
From an ethical point of view, though, I hope juries continue to uphold the principal of privacy. If they do, it will mean that the bar is set high for what is considered to be off limits. And that creates more protection for all of us.
Gawker has tried to argue that this a freedom-of-the-press issue. The implication is that if the state impinges on their freedom then it’s a slippery slope to everyone losing their freedoms.
But here’s the thing — if Gawker published a video of the president accepting a bribe, could they be sued for invading his privacy? The answer should be no. Not only is the president a public figure, but his actions in this case would be in the public interest.
That’s a lot different from pandering to prurient curiosity, and juries are smart enough to understand this.
Many of us are blissfully unaware of the existence of the Adobe Flash Player as we browse the web — until we’re hit with a notice telling us need to download and install it.
There are still videos, games and even entire websites that won’t work unless you have Flash installed. Just try playing Farmville on Facebook without Flash. This is the message I got: “If your game does not load within 10 seconds, you may need to upgrade your version of Flash. Please do so by clicking here.”
I did not click here, nor will I ever. Flash has been uninstalled from all my computers, and it’s not coming back.
Flash is riddled with security holes that require constant downloads and updates if you are to have any hope of avoiding an exploit. For me, it’s just not worth the hassle.
Last week, yet another vulnerability was exposed, and already bad people are taking advantage of it. What are they doing? I don’t know and I don’t want to find out the hard way. Typically, security breaches involve theft of bank account numbers, credit card information or passwords.
Anyway, if you really need to play Farmville on Facebook, there is a way to do it securely. Google Chrome has its own version of Flash baked into the browser. As far as I know, it’s safe from attacks.
Eventually, Flash will be phased out as newer, more secure, technologies take over. But it’s a slow process, especially for companies that have a lot invested in doing things the old way.
The good news is that you seldom need Flash for videos any more. Major sites like YouTube have converted all their content to modern standards.
So why not take the Flash-free challenge? Type “Flash uninstaller” into your favourite search engine and follow the top link. The instructions on Adobe’s website are easy to follow.
Once you’re done, your computer will be safer and chances are you’ll never miss it.
In recent weeks, the phrase “reasonable fear” has become controversial in Canada. That’s because it is held as a standard in criminal harassment cases.
In Ontario, a man was brought to trial on a charge of harassing two women via Twitter. There was no doubt that the language he used was vile and hurtful. But because the women responded in kind, the judge ruled that they while they may have been concerned or annoyed, they could not be said to be fearful.
It’s an interesting ruling because it places “reasonable fear” in context. There is no hard and fast definition.
But it could also mean that people being harassed online will be afraid to stand up to bullies. It appears that fighting back is all it takes to get them off the hook.
In B.C., charges were considered against a man who created a website with the stated goal of ruining his ex-wife’s reputation. On the surface this seems to be blatant case of harassment, but charges were not approved in part because the couple involved live in two different countries — Canada and the United States.
The thinking here appears to be that the woman should have no fear of physical harm because of the distance between them. If that’s the way the law is being interpreted, then it needs to be changed. Psychological harm needs to be taken into account.
Canada recently passed legislation aimed at cyberbullying that makes it against the law to distribute someone’s image without their consent. I’m not sure why it doesn’t apply in this case. Clearly, the ex-wife did not consent to having her pictures on the revenge site.
West Coast LEAF, a legal support group for women based in Vancouver, advocates extending the law to criminalize hate speech against women. The group says that 90 per cent of online bullying is aimed at women and girls, and has coined the term cybermisogyny to describe this behaviour.
They also advocate giving judges the power to make orders to protect victims from ongoing harassment. That kind of power might have simplified how authorities dealt with the revenge site — a judge could simply have ordered that it be taken down, at least as an interim measure.
We can’t ignore situations like this. Online communication has become an integral part of our lives, and we need to ensure that it is used safely and responsibly. There is nothing special about the Internet that allows it to be used in ways that would be otherwise unacceptable.
The FBI has a court order that would force Apple to create special software that would allow the agency to get into an encrypted word iPhone that was used by one of the two terrorists involved in a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.
Apple is fighting the court order. Here’s why you should hope they win.
Your smart phone is a mini computer packed with sensitive data
Many people shrug off the idea of police or government officials having access to their phone or computer because they believe they lead mundane, law-abiding lives. But if you think about it, there is a lot of stuff you would likely prefer to keep to yourself. Some examples:
Contacts: You would not only give up information about yourself, but also friends, relatives and colleagues.
Photos: Yes, even those ones you didn’t dare post on Instagram.
Purchases: Think about all the books you’ve ever bought — were any of them politically incorrect?
Dealings with the government: It might turn out that you owe more income tax than you thought you did.
This doesn’t just affect bad guys
If Apple creates this special software for the FBI, there is no guarantee they won’t use it on other phones as well. How would we ever know? Also, what’s to prevent this program from slipping out into the wild where it could be used by criminals? All it would take is a corrupt insider or a sloppy technician.
This isn’t just a problem for the United States
If the FBI gets its way, it will be just a matter of time before law enforcement agencies in other countries demand the same. Even totalitarian states such as China have so far been holding back. Success by the FBI will open the floodgates. In Canada, you can bet the RCMP and CSIS are very interested in the outcome of this case.
Apples’s best interests align with those of the public
A big part of Apple’s business is selling hardware and software. We give them money and in return we own what we paid for and can do with it as we please. Companies such as Google and Facebook offer “free” services, but we have to give up some of our privacy in return. This may be acceptable in some cases, but it’s good to at least have the option of doing business with a company that is willing to stand up to the government to protect our privacy.
The Victoria Times Colonist is the latest in a long line of news sites that has closed down its comments sections.
Editor-in-chief Dave Obee says trolls have ruined hope for anything resembling civilized debate.
Stories about the homeless bring vitriolic comments. Anything about First Nations will bring comments that reveal a staggering, sickening level of racism.
Articles about people who have bared their soul to tell their stories, in the hope of helping others, have brought calls for the person to commit suicide. Home addresses have been posted by people trying to harass others.
There may have been a time when readers would have been disappointed, but not so much any more. There seems to be more a sense of relief.
Reaction published in letters to the editor includes “bravo” and “thank you.” And I can see why. The bad commenters have shouted down reasonable people to such an extent that real discussion has died.
In fact there are now paid trolls whose job it is lurk in comments sections and hurl invective at opposing opinions. It’s their job to kill debate, so the people who employ them can carry on with as little scrutiny as possible.
On a small site, the few comments that come in can be moderated without a lot of effort. In those cases, they work. But on larger sites, it’s too much — especially when trolls deliberately target them.
One letter writer pointed out that turning off comments hides the hate but doesn’t make it go away.
And Toronto Star columnist Desmond Cole says we still need to confront discrimination and oppression in real life.
The instinct behind the closing of comments sections is perfectly understandable, but looking away from the worst in our culture is generally not a path to progress, and can leave vulnerable people at the mercy of the haters.
He’s right, of course, but I don’t agree that by turning off comments we “dismiss oppression.” Haters feed off each other and reach consensus that what they say is acceptable. It’s not, and they need to know this.
Author Simon Sinek has a theory about why people become loyal to certain products or brands. He says it starts with why — the motivation of the people who run the company.
What makes the CEO get out of bed in the morning? What does he or she do to motivate the people who work for the company? Is it something we can identify with?
Apple is a good example of this. CEO Steve Jobs turned the company around in the ’90s with a Think Different campaign that had nothing to do with computers and everything to do with core beliefs.
Since then, many people have bought into this ideal. Most recently, they have rewarded Apple with a record-breaking quarter of $18.4 billion in profits.
Another example is Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind Tesla and SpaceX. He has big ideas about what the future should look like — electric cars, space exploration, innovative transportation systems.
Those who admire his foresight are the ones who buy his cars, and help make Tesla a success.
Which brings me to the great sadness of newspapers. Two more dailies — in Nanaimo and Guelph — have shut down. Postmedia, owner of most of Canada’s major dailies, including the Sun and Province in Vancouver, is laying off more employees and merging newsrooms.
I wonder what motivates Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey. How about the men who run B.C.‘s newspaper chains — Black Press chairman David Black, Glacier Media chairman Sam Grippo, Aberdeen Publishing president Bob Doull?
We don’t hear much from them, so it’s hard to say what they believe in. Newspaper readers would no doubt appreciate it if they spoke publicly about great journalism. If they’re getting out of bed, thinking about building communities and holding power to account, it would be incredible to hear this.
As it stands, we’re left to believe that the people who run newspapers are simply trying to eke out some revenue before their properties are no longer viable. There is nothing wrong with this, but it’s hardly inspiring.
For inspiration you would have to turn to websites such as The Tyee or the Vancouver Observer. The people who run these news sites are quite open about why they do what they do. You might not agree with it, but there are plenty of others who do, and they are willing put up their money to keep these efforts afloat.
When Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post with his own money, he made it clear that he did for the journalism. And now the Post is making a solid turnaround, close to surpassing the New York Times in readership.
There are no simple solutions for newspapers, but it’s hard to imagine anyone reading them or preferring them when the people in charge are silent on how they feel about the one thing that would make us want to use their product — good journalism.
A friend recently changed her picture on Facebook and got close to 80 likes. It was a nice picture, but not significantly nicer than the previous one — at least not that I noticed. Still, it was worthy of approval from dozens of what I assume to be real-life friends, relatives and co-workers.
She’s living a Facebook Life that most of us can only dream of.
I have another friend who regularly posts about his happy life, his wonderful family and his great job. At least half a dozen people chime in with support every time.
He’s another one living the Facebook Life.
I’m tempted to reply with something sarcastic, but I know it will just make me look bad and I would have to admit to having Facebook Envy. Yes, that’s also a thing, according to Urban Dictionary.
But a new study shows I may be right to be skeptical. A professor at Oxford University found that the dozens of friends on Facebook are nothing like real friends. At most, you could count on a few of them.
The average person said that only about 27 per cent of their Facebook friends were genuine.
Those numbers are mostly similar to how friendships work in real life, the research said. But the huge number of supposed friends on a friend list means that people can be tricked into thinking that they might have more close friends.
Urban Dictionary goes further with what is known as the Facebook Paradox — the suggestion that people who spend a lot of time on Facebook don’t have time for real friends. Their Facebook Life is the opposite of their real life.
In one extreme case, a 19-year-old woman studying at the University of Pennsylvania appeared to have the perfect life — if you went by her Facebook posts. Then one day she took her life by jumping off the ninth storey of a parking garage.
A research scientist at the University of Montreal looking at the case says people tend to want to show their best selves on Facebook. And those rare times when they do talk about their problems, friends are not sure how to react.
Networks like Twitter … like Facebook, they have a public appearance. To express that one is going through difficult times in their lives is still restrained by the issues of stigma.
Perhaps Facebook can best be compared with socializing at a party. When people ask how you’re doing, they really don’t want you to pour your heart out. And even if you do talk about your problems, you’re expected to put a positive spin on them.
So there is no need for Facebook Envy. People living Facebook Lives are just acting like they would in any social situation. It is social media, after all.
When you learn a programming language, you’re often told that it is similar to learning any other language. Certain words mean certain things and there is a syntax to string them together into meaningful phrases.
That might explain how I can find beauty in both well-written code for a web page and well-written prose for a book or article. In any case, I never get tired of words — and if I can play games with them, then so much the better.
Lately, I find myself spending much of my spare time on a group of apps that just happen to be created by a small company in Maine called Blue Ox Technologies. The ox in their logo wears a tuque with snow on it, so I’m pretty sure it’s meant to represent Paul Bunyan’s mythical ox, Babe.
The company has had huge success with Seven Little Words, no doubt in part because of a mention in Oprah’s O magazine. According to the Blue Ox website, the game has been downloaded more than 10 million times since it was invented in 2011. It’s even made a crossover into the newspaper world, being published in many U.S. papers.
The app, available on several mobile platforms, is ingeniously simple — right down to the smiley face it uses for an icon. The object is to create seven words based on a list of clues similar to what you might get in a crossword puzzle. You also get the number of letters for each word.
To create the words, you tap on a four-by-five grid consisting of 20 chunks of letters. Each chunk has two or three letters.
For example, here’s a clue in one of the puzzles: “in jest: 9 letters.” The answer is “teasingly” — made up of “tea” plus “sin” plus “gly.” I find the game challenging, but not to the point of being aggravating.
The catch is that while the app is free, if you want to play it a lot, you’ll have to pay for puzzle packages. You start off with one free package, and you get one free puzzle a day. For me that’s enough.
Blue Ox has recently introduced a new word game called Monkey Wrench. It’s only on iOS so far, but I have a feeling it will be on Android and other platforms soon.
Monkey Wrench is akin to the find-a-word puzzles that have been around forever — but with a twist. The letters are in six-sided hexagons in stead of squares. That means the words you’re looking for could be meandering all over the place.
The clues consist of categories and blank spaces. I was happy in the latest daily puzzle to see the category Canadian Provincial Capitals with two words — one with 13 letters and one with eight letters. That one was easy, especially since the first letters are highlighted. In this case they were C and E.
It can be a lot tougher, though, if you get a category like NFL #1 Draft Picks and know nothing about the subject. Even so, it’s possible to make educated guesses with the process of elimination.
Monkey Wrench works like Seven Little Words for payment. It starts off free, but you have to pay for additional puzzle packs. A daily puzzle is always free.
One of the oldest games from Blue Ox is Moxie, which is totally free and available for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire. It’s a trickier to describe, but basically you’re creating words by either adding or substituting letters. Every time you create a word you get points based on the value of the letters. There are bonus points if you make a word from one of three special lists — animal, vegetable or mineral.
It’s great that it’s free, but the downside is that you might spend a lot more time playing than you might have otherwise. If you’re the competitive type, you’ll aim for the global list of high scores.
A fourth game from Blue Ox worth mentioning is Red Herring, which involves placing words in the correct category. I’m not too crazy about it myself, but that doesn’t mean you won’t like it.
William Shatner, who played Capt. Kirk, is dressed as a Star Wars storm trooper. (Reuters)
I’m such a big science fiction fan that I gave a blog about media and technology an outer space theme. So I should be really pumped about the new Star Wars movie, right?
I wish.
Star Wars movies — every one of them — literally put me to sleep. I’ve forced myself to watch them because they have become a huge part of pop culture and it seems almost impossible to love science fiction and not be at least familiar with the Star Wars stories.
So why do I keep falling asleep? My theory is that these movies basically consist of explosions, running around and wisecracks. There is precious little in the way of character development. The plots are a convoluted mess not worth trying to follow.
Despite all that, I’m willing to set Star Wars to one side and be content with the fact that it provides harmless escapism to millions of people around the world. I just don’t happen to be one of them. Or at least I’m almost willing, because there is one thing about Star Wars that kind of hurts. It has destroyed Star Trek.
Every once in awhile you’ll come across an article that compares Star Wars and Star Trek with the idea of declaring a winner. I definitely like Star Trek better, but as far as a winner goes, Star Wars is clearly the victor.
All you have to do is look at the Star Trek reboot by J.J. Abrams and the the trailer for the next one in the series by Justin Lin — lots of explosions, running around and wisecracks. It’s the Star Wars blockbuster formula shoehorned into Star Trek.
It’s hard to believe that Star Trek started out as a series of stories about exploration. It was right there in the opening to the show: “Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”
The Enterprise crew went out of their way to avoid conflict. They were diplomats who tried to peacefully resolve disputes. And if they weren’t able to do that, they considered it a failure.
Star Trek was inspirational because it hinted at a future world where we on Earth could settle our differences peacefully. If Justin Lin wanted to take Star Trek back to its roots, the next movie might involve a visit to a planet with a conflict similar to the one in Iraq and Syria. There would be a starship hero who is a Muslim.
We would be treated to an exploration of both outer and inner space.
I would be very surprised if this happened. Science fiction movies about exploration still exist, but the Star Trek franchise has abandoned them.
You can watch Ex Machina for an exploration of our relations with artificial intelligence. Try Coherence for an exploration of how a group of people at a dinner party react to a passing comet.
Yes, these are good movies, but they aren’t the blockbusters that Star Trek aspires to. The Martian, an exploration of human survival, made a lot of money at the box office — but it’s hardly in the same league as Star Wars.
The Star Trek tradition lives on. Just don’t expect to see it in Star Trek.
Update: There was some hope that we would see a new Star Trek movie based on the original concept. Some fans raised a million dollars and were about to go into production. But now they’re being sued by Paramount and CBS. It’s highly unlikely they’ll be able to withstand that kind of pressure, but they’re hoping to work out a deal.
If you’re starting up a website, it’s tough to come up with a name because all the good ones have been taken. That’s especially the case if you limit yourself to names ending in dot-com.
And many of the other well-known endings — dot-net and dot-org — have also been snapped up. To get around that, some sites are using endings normally reserved for countries.
The British Indian Ocean territory, an archipelago south of India, is in demand among tech websites. That’s because dot-io not only stands for Indian Ocean but also input/output — the communication that takes place between computing devices.
The Pacific Ocean country of Tuvalu is in a similar situation. Sites specializing in television buy a domain from the island’s government so they can have dot-tv in their name.
Sometimes, a country’s letters are tacked on to spell out a whole word. Libya was popular for awhile because dot-ly could be used in combinations such as bit.ly — a site specializing in shortening web addresses.
That trend may soon become a thing of the past with the flood of new endings now available. When you go to register a name for your site, you’ll find that there is a dot word for just about anything you can think of.
Some new ones coming up include dot-car, dot-family, dot-theatre, dot-protection, dot-wine and dot-cloud.
It might seem like a recipe for mayhem, but I’ve seen some of the new names used in ways that actually make sense. Symbol.guide, for example, is a guide to the code needed on websites for special characters such as ampersands.
When dot-news came out, I thought it might become wide spread. So far, it seems to be used mainly by people who want to reserve it. Were you thinking about starting up kamloops.news? Too bad — it’s taken.
A particularly contentious one is dot-sucks. The idea behind it (or so they say) is to keep corporations and brands on their toes. More commonly, though, it seems to be used as a way to extort money from those same corporations and brands. If they don’t pay for a dot-sucks address, they run the risk of someone else doing it.
This is what happened to Air Canada. They didn’t buy aircanada.sucks, and now they’re paying the price.
The site is supposedly a place for Air Canada customers to share their horror stories with the hope of improving service. But as of this writing, there was not one shared story. Instead, there were plenty of stories pulled in automatically from other sources via news feeds.
Plus, there is a store where you can buy gadgets to make your flight better.
I’m guessing the owners hope Air Canada will sit up, take notice, and make an offer to buy the site. It’s hard to believe they expect to make money from the store.
Of course, Air Canada could simply counter with one of their own called aircanada.rocks. Yes, that possibility also exists.
