In 2005 artist Matt Furie created four cartoon characters for a cartoon called Boy’s Club: Andy, Brett, Landwolf, and Pepe. You’d be forgiven if you were not familiar with the first three, but if you’ve spent any time online in the last decade you’ll almost certainly have come across the Read more
Something is happening with the way in which we acquire and share knowledge, something that might explain the current issues that we are having with the spread of disinformation. The steady erosion of authority and expertise is a well-documented phenomenon, but what is interesting is what is replacing it. While Read more
I love the Internet. Games. Netflix. Twitter. Cat gifs. Memes. The whole world’s knowledge at your fingertips. Expert opinion, peer reviewed articles, books in the public domain, online encyclopaedias. Never in history has been so much information made available to us in such a reachable fashion. Why is it then Read more
There is an interesting copyright case brewing online. Cyriak Harris is a British freelance video animator, famous for creating surreal videos involving cute animals that are then transformed in often nightmarish ways (my favourite is Kitty City). In 2010 he produced a video of dancing cows that went viral (as Read more
[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/joe_hill/status/212902087481241601″] I have just read one of the most interesting tweets in a while, and I suspect that the author’s intention was different from the actual result. In case you cannot read the code above, it is a comment from Joe Hill to Neil Gaiman complaining about how geeks Read more
The rise of individualism One of my favourite documentaries of all time is The Century of the Self (2002) by Adam Curtis (you can view it on YouTube in its glorious four hour entirety here). I’ll concede that Curtis is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I believe that in Read more
As Wikipedia goes silent today in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), and as other Internet giants unite their voices against the proposed legislations, we could really say that Web activism is starting to become a force to be reckoned with. Undoubtedly Read more
Many of us have been following with interest the adventures of Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari, better known as A Gay Girl in Damascus, a half Syrian, half American girl writing about her struggles in the Arab Spring. I have to admit that although I have read some of her entries, Read more
Yesterday we got a very interesting lesson about law enforcement online. Imagine that you discover your rights are being violated in some way, and you are almost certain that you are on the right. Traditionally you had three options: do nothing, contact the offender to negotiate, or file a lawsuit. Read more
Anyone who has ever heard me speak about Internet regulation will know of my barely contained scepticism with regards to Barlow’s Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, and all that it represents. In fact, the Declaration speaks of a more innocent time in Internet history, and it is usually considered to Read more