Media Bits and Bytes - Cruzifiction edition

Who runs Wikipedia?; Brooklyn for net neutrality; Net lobbying; GOP tweets away campaign laws; Social media and socialization; Ted Cruz can't get no respect

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The 36 People Who Run Wikipedia

By Stephen Lurie
November 5, 2014
Matter

Wikipedia is the sixth most popular website in the world, with 22.5 million contributors and 736 million edits in English alone. It’s as if the entire population of Australia (23.6 million) each contributed 30 times. Last year Wikimedia sites overall (which includes the likes of Wikiquote and Wiktionary, as well as Wikipedia itself) averaged 20 billion pageviews per month.
This paradox of its success is most striking at the top of the Wikimedia food chain. Running this huge enterprise is a little-known hierarchy of volunteer leaders, effectively each working an extra part-time job to police the site, battle vandals, seek out spammers and sock puppets, and clean and control what you see. Thousands of people around the world actually apply to do more work for free as a Wikimedia administrator, autopatroller, rollbacker, or bureaucrat.

A Brooklyn Rally Makes Net Neutrality About Communities, Not Just Companies

By Adi Robertson
November 4, 2014
The Verge

"New York Speaks" is an unofficial hearing organized by reform groups Free Press, Common Cause, and several others. The hearing is meant to let New Yorkers voice their concerns about how the FCC is regulating the internet in general, but there are two major issues on the table: a proposed merger between cable giants Comcast and Time Warner Cable, and an impending net neutrality vote.
Millions have already let the FCC know how they feel. But the meeting in Brooklyn is marked by its focus on — or even just its prominent inclusion of — people who don’t fit the stereotypical (usually white and male) "generic internet user" template. Dragonfly, a local activist emceeing the proceedings in a long blue jacket and bright red afro, was part of the mid-October "weekend of resistance" in Ferguson, where cameras captured her embracing a police officer in the midst of the demonstration. Here, she leads the crowd in chants — and a public prayer to "the deities of the interwebs" — before ushering them inside the library to testify about how the internet has changed their lives.

The Companies Lobbying Furiously Against Strong Net Neutrality, In One Chart

By Andrew Prokop
November 12, 2014
Vox

This week, President Obama proposed to reclassify the regulatory status of broadband to protect network neutrality — the idea that all companies should treat internet traffic equally. The lobbying on the issue has been fierce and longstanding. But according to a review of lobbying filings by Alexander Furnas and Lee Drutman of the Sunlight Foundation, one side has lobbied far more than the other.
The corporations who've lobbied the most on the issue are easily Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast — all companies that oppose the strong network neutrality rules the president endorsed this week. Then come two trade groups who have similar views — the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (representing cable TV companies), and the National Music Publishers Association (which wants internet service providers to be able to crack down on music piracy).

How The Gop Used Twitter To Stretch Election Laws

By Chris Moody
November 17, 2014
CNN

Republicans and outside groups used anonymous Twitter accounts to share internal polling data ahead of the midterm elections, CNN has learned, a practice that raises questions about whether they violated campaign finance laws that prohibit coordination.
The practice is the latest effort in the quest by political operatives to exploit the murky world of campaign finance laws at a time when limits on spending in politics are eroding and regulators are being defanged.

The (One) Simple Thing Fueling Your Social Media Addiction

By Caitlin Dewey
November 12, 2014
Washington Post

Three hundred Twitter followers. Five hundred Facebook friends. A mere three upvotes on that link you posted to Reddit a full three hours ago, which means it really kind of bombed. I even have a friend who watches the number of Instagram likes his pictures receive, deleting the ones that fail to “go double-digit.” As if there were anything in the world more arbitrary than whether nine or 10 people heart that highly filtered photo of your last meal, anyway.
The quantification of our social lives is intended, presumably, to give some shape to our otherwise amorphous interpersonal interactions. But as a startling new paper by the artist and developer Benjamin Grosser makes clear, all these numbers are having a more insidious effect, as well: They’ve become the primary measure by which we judge whether our friendships, and our lives, are valuable or fulfilling.

All Hell Breaks Loose On Ted Cruz’s FB Page As Conservatives Go On The Attack

By Mindy Fischer
November 12, 2014
Liberals Unite
Earlier this week President Obama gave an interview on a Sunday talk show where he talked again about his support for Net Neutrality. So naturally the crazy Conservatives immediately came out against it. Ted Cruz posted to his Twitter account saying that a neutral internet was the same thing as Obamacare for the web.
He also quickly posted to his Facebook page a similar, and equally ignorant, comment. Honestly, the only thing that his posts really prove is that he doesn’t have a clue about what Net Neutrality really is….or Obamacare, for that matter.
But before you go getting all frustrated with this latest example of right-wing stupidity, I think I have something that will make you smile and brighten your day. And it comes from perhaps an unlikely source. Following Cruz’s Facebook post, even Republicans came out telling Teddy what a complete buffoon he is here.