Mar 7, 2016 | Civil Liberties, Elections - Presidential (2016), Internet Culture, Science and Technology
Published: The Daily Dot (March 7, 2016) When it comes to Internet freedom, it is entirely possible that the 2016 presidential election will be remembered as one of the most consequential events in the history of cyberspace. This may seem like a bold conclusion, but when you consider the competing attitudes on Internet issues not only between Democrats and Republicans but within the major...
Feb 22, 2016 | Civil Liberties, Internet Culture, Supreme Court and Other Judicial Issues
Published: The Daily Dot (February 22, 2016) When it comes to the field of cyber law, it’s rather ironic that the next Supreme Court justice will replace the late Antonin Scalia. After all, the famous constitutional originalist revealed in 2012 that, if he had his druthers, his successor would be University of Chicago law professor Frank Easterbrook, a man who once compared studying Internet law...
Feb 14, 2016 | Civil Liberties, Internet Culture, Supreme Court and Other Judicial Issues
Published: The Daily Dot (February 14, 2016) Say what you will about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia–and pundits and people on both the left and the right have been doing just that since his passing on Saturday–but when it comes to Internet freedom, he may have been one of the great legal minds of our time. Let’s start with a 2005 case in which an Internet service provider named Brand X...
Feb 14, 2016 | Internet Culture, Love and Dating, Science and Technology
Published: The Good Men Project (February 13, 2016) First, I just want to add that I'm a big fan of Film Brain, the British movie critic whose web series "Bad Movie Beatdown" manages to intelligently deconstruct some of the worst motion pictures ever made. Since our Twitter conversation inspired this piece, I figured it would only be appropriate to preface this article with a gratitude plug. Now...
Feb 1, 2016 | Elections, Elections - Presidential (2016), Internet Culture, mic, Science and Technology
Published: The Daily Dot (February 1, 2016) Regardless of which candidates triumph in the Iowa caucuses today, there is one winner whose victory no one will be able to dispute—digital technology. To understand how the Internet has fundamentally transformed the Iowa caucuses, it is first necessary to explain the mechanics that determine how this unique political ritual functions. Although...
Jan 23, 2016 | Arts and Entertainment, Internet Culture, mic
Published: The Daily Dot (January 23, 2016) If there is any silver lining to the Amy Schumer plagiarism scandal, it is that it establishes one of the ways in which the Internet can be an unequivocal force for good. Thanks to social media and online activism, the days in which the powerful can rip off the powerless with impunity are long gone. Just to recap: Three female comedians have accused...
Jan 15, 2016 | Bullying, Internet Culture, mic
Published: The Daily Dot (January 14, 2016) If there is a single major social problem that best captures the pros and cons of our Internet-driven world, it is the issue of bullying. On one hand, the Internet has become notorious in recent years as a breeding ground for bullying behavior. According to the Cyberbullying Research Center, about half of young people have experienced some form of...
Jan 2, 2016 | Internet Culture, mic, Race and Racism, Satirical Essays
Published: The Good Men Project (January 2, 2016) It's one thing to explain why modern white supremacists are funny (something I've already done several times), but it's quite another to actually illustrate how this can be the case. Fortunately, a good friend of mine recently received an anonymous message from an Internet stalker which allows me to do precisely that. This troll, you see, was...
Nov 27, 2015 | Autobiographical, Civil Liberties, Education, Internet Culture, Millennials
Published: The Daily Dot (November 27, 2015) It’s hard to follow the recent flurry of college protests without being reminded of President Harry S. Truman, who famously said that “there is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.” As the media continues to fete attention on high-profile student demonstrations at Yale, Wesleyan, Princeton, and the University of Missouri, one...
Nov 11, 2015 | Civil Liberties, Education, Internet Culture, mic
Published: The Huffington Post (November 11, 2015), The Good Men Project (November 10, 2015) This is an editorial for my fellow liberals. Because progressive ideas on political and social issues often challenge conventional assumptions, liberalism as an ideology depends on freedom of speech for survival. It isn't enough that the state be prohibited from suppressing dissenting political opinions;...