Friday, November 27, 2015

Between Snowden and Paris: Using a Public Square for Reflection and Debate

In the main square of Strasbourg, France, artist Davide Dormino recently installed “Anything to Say,” a public art tribute to Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning.

Public art installation in tribute to whistleblowers Edward
Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning.
Strasbourg, France. (photo: Tim Karr)
Statues depicting each of these whistleblowers stand shoulder to shoulder on a row of chairs. An empty chair is placed to the right of Snowden so that members of the public can take a stand alongside the three.

“They all chose to get up on the chairs of courage,” Dormino says about the subjects of his installation. “They made their move in spite of becoming visible, thus threatened and judged. Some think they are traitors. History never had a positive opinion of contemporary revolutionaries. You need courage to act, to stand up on that empty chair…”

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

What Comcast Doesn’t Want You to Know About Data Caps

Comcast wants you to believe that it’s just playing fair in its latest push to control the Internet. Last week the cable-Internet colossus expanded its plan to impose unnecessary broadband-usage caps on Comcast users in cities across the South.

Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas told the Associated Press that caps “introduce some more fairness” into the way Internet users pay for data. Comcast customers who exceed a monthly 300 Gigabyte usage cap will have additional fees tacked onto their monthly bill.

Photo: Free Press
That’s a bitter pill to swallow for the millions of Comcast customers who’ve already seen bills for the company’s cable bundle rise at many times the rate of inflation. Those hoping to save costs by cutting cable television altogether now face a Comcast-imposed scheme to choke out the popular trend of watching TV over the Internet.

No Congestion Here

In documents leaked onto reddit last week, Comcast instructs its customer service representatives how to spin the expansion of data caps. The reasons for the caps, the documents say, are “fairness and [the need to provide] a more flexible policy to our customers.” But what could be more fair and flexible than giving customers the unlimited data plan that many originally paid for?