The Open Index Protocol Aims to Decentralize Media - Coindesk

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The Open Index Protocol Aims to Decentralize Media – Coindesk

Published

3 years ago

January 15, 2020

Harry Miller

Amy James is a self-described storyteller. As co-founder of the Open Index Protocol, James entered the world of blockchain when she realized it was impossible to control or even find content.

“I was a writer and director, and so I’m really familiar with the friction that content creators are experiencing,” she said at the Digital Money Forum at CES 2020. “Right now it’s really hard to make a living. It’s really hard to keep track of your stuff. And so I felt really unstable about building a media business that way.”

Ultimately, James sees the future of content as a decentralized system free of major gatekeepers like YouTube and Twitter. But it will take work.

“If you are on Instagram or you make a show on YouTube, you kind of work in a company town. And if they do something to you, they endanger your entire livelihood,” she said. “And so what we’re talking about is how this decentralized future is going to make it so that we own our data again, that we own our content that we’re putting into the world and that that’s just really clear and transparent.”

James’ project creates “a decentralized and transparent index for digital content and protected file persistence.” According to James, it’s working. In 2019 the organization saw some solid acceptance including new implementations of the protocol in real-use cases.

First, the organization created a partnership with the state of Wyoming and Overstock’s Medici Land Governance blockchain to decentralize property records. The team also created a video series called What Kind of Internet Do You Want? to describe the features of decentralized media.

Ultimately, James sees the decentralized future as a solution to many problems in the media. The key, said James, is making the decentralized tools as easy to use as Medium.

“How do we bridge this decentralized future that we all dream of with the world of platforms that are so convenient and so easy to use and have so many tools and features?” she said. “That’s really the question of the day.”

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The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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Russia to Build State Media Ecosystem in Occupied Ukraine – The Moscow Times

Published

33 mins ago

June 9, 2023

Harry Miller

Russian-installed authorities in occupied Ukraine are developing a centralized “information space” for pro-Russian mass media and outreach, the Vedomosti business daily reported Friday.

Russia claims to have annexed four regions of Ukraine — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — in September 2022 following widely disputed referendums, despite failing to fully control any of them.

Moscow-installed authorities in these regions now seek “to create a channel of verified information in each region,” Vedomosti said, citing sources in the regions’ Russian administrations.

These channels’ main focus should be on news about the “socio-economic agenda” and the “agenda of creation” — in other words, positive news.

Like the rest of Russia, the occupied regions have faced censorship of information that contradicts the Kremlin’s narrative of the war since its invasion began in February 2022.

Currently, the only local pro-Russian media sources in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions are the social media pages of Kremlin-appointed officials and military bloggers.

The Donetsk and Luhansk regions’ “news agencies” were first created in 2014 — when pro-Moscow separatists went to war with Kyiv — with the support of Russian state agencies.

The creation of similar agencies in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions was announced earlier this month, with Russian officials and state journalists again playing an advisory role.

According to Vedomosti, one of these consultants will be Lana Samarina, the former first deputy editor-in-chief of the state-run TASS news agency.

Russia launched efforts to “Russify” the Ukrainian territories under its control shortly after invading Ukraine, implementing the Russian currency, issuing passports and installing Kremlin-appointed “governors.”

The occupied regions have also faced censorship of information that contradicts the Kremlin’s narrative of the war.

Russia last month announced plans to hold local parliamentary elections in the occupied Ukrainian regions in September.

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Judge in FTX bankruptcy rejects media challenge, says customer names can remain secret – Yahoo Canada Finance

Published

4 hours ago

June 9, 2023

Harry Miller

DOVER, Del. (AP) — The names of individual customers of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX Trading can be permanently shielded from public disclosure, a Delaware bankruptcy judge ruled Friday.

Following a two-day hearing, Judge John Dorsey rejected arguments from lawyers for several media outlets and for the U.S. bankruptcy trustee, which serves as a government watchdog in Chapter 11 reorganization cases, challenging FTX’s request to keep the names of customers and creditors secret.

Dorsey ruled that customer identities constitute a trade secret. He also said FTX customers need to be protected from bad actors who might target them by scouring the internet and the “dark web” for their personal information.

“It’s the customers that are the most important issue here,” he said. “I want to make sure that they are protected and they don’t fall victim to any types of scams that might be happening out there.”

Katie Townsend, an attorney for the media outlets, had argued that the press and the public have a “compelling and legitimate interest” in knowing the names of those affected by the stunning collapse of FTX.

“That collapse sent shock waves not just through the cryptocurrency industry, but the entire financial industry,” Townsend said. “And at this point, we don’t even know where the shock waves, both individually and institutionally, have hit the hardest, and what institutions may have the largest, or no, exposure as a result.”

But lawyers for FTX and its official committee of unsecured creditors argued that its customer list is both a valuable asset and confidential commercial information. They contend that secrecy is needed to protect FTX customers from theft and potential scams, and to ensure that potential competitors do not “poach” FTX customers. FTX believes its customer list could prove valuable as part of any sale of assets, or as part of a reorganization.

“The debtors are in a position to realize value from these customer lists,” said FTX attorney Brian Glueckstein.

FTX entered bankruptcy in November when the global exchange ran out of money after the equivalent of a bank run. Founder Sam Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to charges that he cheated investors and looted customer deposits to make lavish real estate purchases, campaign contributions to politicians, and risky trades at Alameda Research, his cryptocurrency hedge fund trading firm. Three former FTX executives have pleaded guilty to fraud charges and are cooperating with investigators.

In January, Dorsey ruled that FTX could redact the names of all customers, and the addresses and email addresses of non-individual customers, from court filings for 90 days. He also authorized FTX to permanently keep secret the addresses and email addresses of individual creditors and equity holders.

On Friday, the judge approved the permanent sealing of individual customer names and extended the secrecy regarding the names of institutional customers for another 90 days.

Dorsey refused, however, to continue to allow FTX to shield the names of individual creditors or equity holders who are citizens of the United Kingdom or European Union nations and covered under a consumer protection program known as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. FTX sought similar treatment for individuals covered under Japanese data privacy laws.

Dorsey said that, in response to an objection from the U.S. trustee, FTX had presented no evidence to show that those foreign individuals might be harmed, or that FTX might be sanctioned, if their names are disclosed.

Dorsey also rejected a request by attorneys for an ad hoc committee of non-U.S. customers to keep the names of its members secret. If the committee wants to participate in the case, then the names of its members must be disclosed, he said.

According to redacted court filings, the ad hoc committee currently has 35 members, with estimated economic interests in FTX ranging from $64,434 to $1.5 billion. Dorsey noted that some members may decide to drop out based on his ruling.

Randall Chase, The Associated Press

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Liberals to direct CRTC to keep hands off social media with streaming regulation – National Post

Published

15 hours ago

June 9, 2023

Harry Miller

User-generated content and content that is only available on social media platforms will be excluded under the proposed policy direction

FILE – This combination of photos shows logos of Twitter, top left; Snapchat, top right; Facebook, bottom left; and TikTok. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

OTTAWA — The Liberal government will direct the CRTC not to regulate content from social media users as it implements the controversial Online Streaming Act.

Content made by social media creators, and content that is only available on social media platforms, will be excluded under the proposed policy direction to the regulator.

“The proposed directions … deliver on public commitments by the Government to ensure that the Commission would only regulate social media platforms insofar as they are acting like broadcasters and not the social media elements of their services, which include any content created and uploaded by everyday users (commonly known as user-generated content),” the government said in documents made available to media.

Controversy over the regulatory authority the CRTC would have over user-generated content — such as YouTube or TikTok videos posted by Canadians or digital creators — has followed the bill for two years. The Liberal government refused to exclude social media in Bill C-11 itself. Opponents maintained it was important to set the exclusion in law, for reasons including that considering future governments can reverse a policy direction to the CRTC more easily than they can change a law.

The Online Streaming Act became law just over a month ago. It sets up the CRTC to bring streaming platforms like Netflix and YouTube into the Canadian content system that traditional broadcasters and TV providers already contribute to, ensuring more funding for the creation of Canadian content.

The law itself limits the CRTC’s powers over user content to “discoverability” — directing digital platforms to showcase more Canadian content in the movies, TV shows and music they recommend to their users. The social media exclusion in the policy direction would mean those provisions wouldn’t apply to user posts on YouTube, for example, a prospect digital creators who depend on those platforms raised alarm about.

But discoverability powers would apply to content on other streaming platforms like Netflix or Disney+. The government said it would tell the CRTC to implement the “discoverability requirements in a way that minimizes the need to alter algorithms of broadcasting undertakings and that, where possible, increases choice for users.”

Senior officials said in a technical briefing that an element of the policy direction acknowledges the CRTC could use its discoverability powers in a way that would lead platforms to alter their algorithms, and the idea is to minimize those cases.

The CRTC can’t tell a streaming service like Amazon Prime or Spotify to make specific changes to its algorithms. But it can say that they need to include more Canadian content in their recommendations or suggestions, which would require them change the algorithms that create those recommendations.

The CRTC will also be told to make redefining Canadian content a priority. That process would include “consulting with Canadians, members of the creative and production sectors and other interested parties.”

The government will hold a 45-day consultation on the draft policy direction before issuing a final version.

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