Twitter posted a handy FAQ about their new “country withheld content” guidelines. In it, it lays out what the format of censored tweets and accounts will look like. The policy seems to affect countries that have rules about offensive content like the example of pro-Nazi tweets in Germany. Even in those cases, Twitter will inform users that the tweet has been censored instead of removing it with no explanation.

The final part of the FAQ is where things get interesting. In the section titled, “How do you know where I am? What is Twitter has misidentified my country?,” they say that your IP address is what determines your country. You can, however, change your country if Twitter gets it wrong.

The Next Web is reporting that changing the country in your account settings to a “free” country like the U.S. or U.K. will bypass the censorship tool. Users were able to select worldwide to bypass the the censoring, but it reverts back to your IP selected country when chosen now.

As you can see here, I have changed my country to the U.K. and Twitter does not change my country back to the U.S. even though it did when I tried changing it to Worldwide.

It remains to be seen if Twitter will change this loophole. The Next Web speculates that Twitter is well aware of this loophole, but is letting it slide to allow Twitter to remain the tool of change in many countries where it was used in revolutions last year.

Yes, that means about what you think it means: there is a video game that uses your pee. Urine. Number one. And if you’re a male in Tokyo anytime soon, you may get to take a shake at the bathroom game if you happen by the right urinal.

News of Sega’s urinal video game, Toylet, has been creeping westward for a little while now, but Game On Gaming has put together one of the better demo videos .

Sigh. Dear Japan: Please don’t change for anybody.

At this moment China’s Internet users cannot view YouTube. The Chinese government claims that it had nothing to do with the outage but its timing with the airing of footage on YouTube of detained Tibetan protesters being beaten seems a bit more than a coincidence to the rest of the thinking world.

Google’s take on this is

Google spokesman Scott Rubin told InternetNews.com that it is still working to bring its video-sharing site back online and identify the cause of the outage.

The Internet News article goes into the specifics of this incident very well. Some highlights include:

• According to the Global Network Initiative at least a dozen countries with less than pristine human rights records have blocked YouTube access since 2007

• The Chinese government calls the videos fraudulent and does not say that the outage is due to government activity

• The CTA (Central Tibetan Administration) is accused of a propaganda campaign that coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising

All of this interesting in the context of how most of us view the Internet. With Internet access comes the freedom to do and please with it however you want. I can watch videos and interviews that are anti US government all day long if I choose to waste my time doing that. How many more police brutality videos can you see as well. No one is stopping us from doing any of this. What’s China afraid of? Is it fearful that the rest of the world will discover their human rights violations? News alert – That cat’s been out of the bag for a long time.

So back to the Internet marketing part of this. It ties back to us ever being able to truly engage in Internet commerce with a country that will shut down access to whatever it is threatened by. Do we want to do business with them? Of course, for many the allure of a billion or so potential customers may override any human rights concerns. Many companies (US government included) still do business with countries that are blatantly in violation of human rights.

So does this even mean anything at all to the rest of the world? If Google and YouTube can’t work in China will Google just abandon their efforts there? Not likely. There are too many people there.

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Here is a recap of the SES Chicago posts in case you missed any:

• Meet the Web Analytics Players
• Igniting Viral Campaigns
• Keynote Speech – Rodney Dangerfield School of Search Marketing
• Keynote – Seth Godin & 14 Trends to Avoid a Meatball Sundae
• Big Site, Big Search
• Actionable Social Media
• Usability and SEO
• Are You Ignoring the Power of Images?
• Snowy & Festive at SES Chicago
• SEO and Development – Get It Together
• Personalization, User Data & Search
• Podcast and Audio Search
• Strolling the Exhibit Floor at SES Chicago
• Images and Search Engines
• Managing PPC For Multiple Clients
• So You Want to Be A Search Marketer?
• Landing Page Optimization Clinic
• Kevin Ryan Unplugged
• Do Your Keywords Account for Local Vernacular?

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AP Is Dead … Killed By Blogs & Aggregation

In the pre-Internet days the AP had little competition beyond a few other news syndicators like Reuters and UPI. The AP’s world has now changed forever with the advent of blogs and news aggregation sites.

Blogs are the new "AP" journalists and aggregation services which started with NewsLinx.com in 1996 (founded by me!) and which now include Google News, Topix, Techmeme, WebProWire and the new Blogrunner have made the AP much less relevant. There are now tens of thousands of  bloggers around the world providing coverage and analysis of current events too! It comes down to why pay when you can get the news for free.

The AP is scrambling to remain needed in this fast paced up to the second blog news world. As reported and analyzed by WebProNews, the AP is suing Moreover for of all things… linking to AP stories. Does the AP not realize that winning this suit would result in less readers of their stories? The old news order is dead, the AP will have to adapt or die.

AP President and CEO Tom Curley does seem to realize that something has to change. In a speech yesterday Curley remarked:

" We — the news industry — have come to that fork in the road. We must take bold, decisive steps to secure the audiences and funding to support journalism’s essential role in both our economy and democracy, or find ourselves on an ugly path to obscurity."

Curley goes on to say that "we must understand and embrace the new ways people are consuming content".

Right …. like blogs and news aggregation and linking! Does the AP really get it? I personally don’t think so. Tom Curley’s entire speech on how news is changing does not even mention blogs or news aggregation. He also seemingly references his linking lawsuit when telling the audience …

" We have the power to control how our content flows on the Web. We must use that power if we’re to continue to be financially secure and independent enough to speak truth to power." 

The Associated Press model of news is dead … dead as can be. It is a business model that pays reporters to travel and write stories and then syndicate those stories to traditional news organizations. This model cannot compete with bloggers who write for free and often live where the news is. Additionally these bloggers are often experts, not just reporters looking in. News is now being reported by the news makers themselves who blog about it and then analyzed by hundreds of experts who themselves blog.

Aggregations sites have made the need for news syndicators like the AP obsolete. Bloggers themselves, by linking to related stories have also become content syndicators.

The AP’s relevance has disappeared. The AP’s business model has evaporated. The AP is dead, killed by blogs and news aggregation.

UPDATE and CORRECTION: Perhaps some wires got twisted, who knows? The stream where Obama was to address the issue was slated for 1:30. He was asked the Net Neutrality question later, and came out in support. Here’s the updated version.

Joe Niederberger submitted the question 10Questions.com, a site promising to ask the Senator directly. Users voted the question to the top, which asked:

"Would you make it a priority in your first year of office to re-instate Net Neutrality as the law of the land? And would you pledge to only appoint FCC commissioners that support open Internet principles like Net Neutrality?"

The question, though, was never asked nor addressed in Obama’s MTV/MySpace speech. In fact, nothing terribly specific was addressed at all, and it appeared he was just trying to squeeze in a campus pep-rally before lunch. He stayed with the formula for this speech:

1. Shake some hands.
2. Pander to the crowd for arranging the weather so nicely.
3. Say something cutting against Bush.
4. Tell the young people they are the future and most consistent harbingers of change.
5. Tell a quaint story about small town America.

And really, getting college kids to boo Bush and cheer themselves is like making teenagers depressed which, as Lisa Simpson once said, is like shooting fish in a barrel. Chalk this one up as a raucous win, campaign manager, now lets go eat.

"The most important thing you go away with today," he said, "is a sense of your own power." But as for a Net Neutrality position — zero, zip, nada. Instead, he told the story of a little old lady in South Carolina that cheered him up on a bad day by being "fired up" and "ready to go."

Fired up and ready to go where? Maybe he’ll have more to say over lunch when the speech re-airs on MTV tonight at seven.

"In 2008, voters are looking for real leadership," said Adam Green, who leads controversial political action group MoveOn.org’s Internet freedom campaign. "Any presidential candidate who boldly promises to re-instate Net Neutrality during his or her first year in office, and to only appoint pro-neutrality FCC commissioners, will get tons of positive buzz online."

But it won’t be today, apparently.

Facebook Islam Row Highlights Free Speech Issues

And at times, that line can be as thin as the line between art and pornography.

Yet, here we are creating user-generated societies within corporately-provided bubbles without any clear delineation of what is tolerable. What is tolerable is determined by mobs and, less often, lawyers who will pull this out into the real world if necessary.

I’m certainly not one to judge the content of the Facebook group mentioned in this New York Times article with 750 members with the stated goal denouncing not only Islam and the Quran, but also the existence of God. There may have been other potentially objectionable statements made.

But another group, which grew 58,000 members strong by the weekend, threatened to cancel their Facebook memberships if the anti-Islamic group wasn’t removed.

What to do, what to do? A representative of the targeted group said Facebook deleted the account – briefly. They most likely realized the freedom of speech quagmire they were about to enter and changed their mind. Facebook didn’t have a comment, so we may never know.

But it highlights a growing issue as the Internet creates a more connected world and as people with any number of opinions cross paths, and they (gasp!) have to learn to deal with each other.

Some of those opinions will be hateful. The terms of use for using websites warn against hate speech, but who is the line judge eyeballing between anger and hate?

Is it the Middle East Media Research Institute, who’ve been keeping a close eye on all the mean things said about Islam and Muhammad on YouTube? Are YouTubers allowed to call Islam a "sucky, pathetic religion"? Is it hate speech to give "Seven reasons why Islam is crazy"?

Those sound more like strong opinions than hate speech. But I’m not a judge. And I don’t necessarily want to be. I’m just not sure, in this case, if you substituted "Christianity," "Mormonism," or "Wicca," you could label it anything other than religious commentary. But because it involves Islam – or it involved Judaism – it would be slapped around into the hate speech zone, at least for a little while.

The point is one I’ve tried to make before – when YouTube yanked videos at the request of foreign interests, when AT&T muted Eddie Vedder, when Google let China have its way them – that there is no freedom of speech on the Internet so long as the platforms for speech are provided by private companies dancing to the demands of the largest market.

This is not – repeat is not, before commentators below and on blogs start calling me a liberal communist pig – a call for central government control of the Internet – just, perhaps, some guarantee out there, via Net Neutrality or through the various Bills of Rights that have been proposed, that people will retain their right to speech even in digital forums, terms of service and angry mobs be damned.

We should be allowed to say what we want to say.

Is The FCC Blocking Wireless Competition?

M2Z Networks created quite a stir and sort of speeded its own rejection by hammering the FCC into a decision about the company’s proposed free, advertising-supported wireless broadband network. But also, M2Z has sparked fierce public debate over a host of issues that aren’t easy to resolve, including debates about free speech and Net Neutrality. 

Perhaps the most pressing (if not the largest) issue: What to do with all that unused spectrum?

Listen to the Muleta Interview

M2Z CEO John Muleta, whose venture-funded Silicon Valley company proposed the FCC carve out the 2155-2175 MHz band that had lain fallow since 2000 for their "family friendly" network, says the FCC is "sitting" on a lot of unused spectrum that could be used to create new wireless broadband competition.

Muleta brings not just his vested interest in the proposal, but also a Washington Beltway insider pedigree. From 2003 to 2005, he served as the chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.

In an interview with WebProNews, Muleta describes M2Z as an answer to the telecom/cable broadband duopoly, and an anticompetitive market he suggests the FCC has helped to create by blocking startups such as his own.

M2Z was quite vocal in the final days leading to the dismissal of its proposal, noting the speed with which the Commission approved the largest merger in US history – the AT&T/BellSouth merger – and comparing it to the relative slowness of considering uses for fallow spectrum.

"The FCC has spent 15 months looking at our proposal and decided to think some more about it," said Muleta.

Commissioners criticized the proposal for not being aggressive enough in its build-out plans, and for not offering fast enough speeds. Muleta rejected both arguments, saying that the goal to reach 95 percent of the US population was "aggressive" and that 384 Kbs was comparable to the wireless broadband offerings of AT&T and Verizon, who charge $60-$90 per month.

Though the FCC said it needed time to devise rules and invite public comment on what to do with the spectrum (M2Z proposed a 5 percent of profit trade out), for deciding to license or not license, to auction or not to auction, etc., one Commissioner, Jonathan Adelstein, expressed disappointment that the Commission had not sought comment on service rules for this band before now.

"Why does it take 15 months to [initiate rule making]?" echoed Muleta. The answer may lie in that it’s more complicated than throwing spectrum to the first startup that asks for it.

Though there is certainly evidence that the FCC has sat on its heels in divvying up spectrum to would-be wireless competitors, or indeed, as Muleta put it, is flat out "getting in the way" of competition, M2Z’s proposal introduced two new and quite sticky elements to the debate: a Constitutional element; and a Net Neutrality element.

M2Z said content coming across its free network would be "family friendly," which means filters would be in place to block adult content. A premium service would also be available where the filter could be turned off.

Muleta equates it to free over-the-air broadcast television and radio, which has been (quite arguably) family friendly for decades, self-regulated by the networks with oversight by the FCC.

"If we granted a free service," he said, "we think it’s common sense that children don’t inadvertently get to pornographic material."

Listen to the Feld Interview

But Harold Feld, Senior Vice President of Media Access Project, a 35-year-old nonprofit organization dedicated to free speech in media issues and, more recently, opening up spectrum bands for unlicensed public use, says that the FCC granting a license allowing a network operator to filter content would be "an outright violation of the First Amendment."

Feld differentiates between broadcast and wireless broadband with some classic communication theory that involves passive versus active users.

"The problem was you’d be sitting there with your kids huddled around the television set or listening to the radio in this sort of Norman Rockwell type picture and then suddenly this terrible indecent content would jump out at you before you even knew it was there and your kids were exposed to it before you could even turn the dial."

Those were passive users. Active users, as with Internet users, seek out content.

On the Net Neutrality side of the debate, you might imagine, this would involve a government sanction for allowing a network operator to sniff around data packets, separate content, and ultimately decide what the end user can view. And that, says Feld, "sets an extraordinarily bad precedent."

Muleta is quick to answer, though, falling back on the argument that the free market will cure all ills and that the FCC has created the problem of Constitutional concern by clogging up the market in favor of incumbents, and preventing new entrants by doing nothing with the available spectrum.

In the rejection to M2Z’s proposal, Muleta notes not even these concerns were addressed. "What are they thinking?" he asks. "What are they doing out there? Are they fighting fires?"

Bloggers Resolve Dispute On CNN

Locke, who was revealed as the owner of the blogs in which the threats and images appeared, has consistently denied any direct involvement in the affair, and had criticized Sierra for implicating him, albeit indirectly, without tangible evidence.

The two, however, seem to have settled at least some of their differences and have put out a joint statement which expresses concerns over the backlash that overreaction to hateful commentary could have on the underlying principles of free speech.

Many have weighed in on the Kathy Sierra story. Some of have come down on the side of desiring more control over the blogosphere, expressing the opinion that bloggers should adhere to a predetermined code of ethics. Others feel that immature hate-speech simply comes with the territory of being a public figure, and any attempts at regulation are counterintuitive to the spirit of free speech on the Internet.

What’s the greater issue here? On one hand, you have a very real mentality of hatred towards women that is unfortunately not all that uncommon or difficult to encounter when surfing the Internet’s vast archive of commentary.

On the other hand, you have this delicate concept of free speech that so many bloggers cling to for dear life, and rightly so. So where does the balance lie in preserving the right to expression while at the same time discouraging hateful behavior?

These are the questions that Kathy Sierra and Chris Locke look to tackle in their joint statement.

On the topic of female degradation, Locke writes:

There is much more to say about this experience that can’t be unpacked in such a brief statement. There is time yet for more balanced articles to be written, less heated conversations to take place. Misogyny is real — and vile. Violence against women is wrong. It must not be tolerated. This issue should be explored and discussed, not swept under the rug, not rationalized away. At the same time, we need to look closely and carefully at the implications for free speech.

Sierra, though the target of death threats and maliciously sexual commentary, agrees that preserving free speech is paramount:

That said, Chris and I are in complete agreement that it would be tragic if this incident were used as a weapon by those who would limit free and open exchange. My desire is for much more open debate on this issue, not legislated limits.

This could be a very important moment if we stop, think, and talk about the kind of future we really want online, and make certain we don’t give up something more important in the process.

Sierra says she won’t be blogging again for a while, but will return when the time is right. Locke is trying to salvage his reputation in the midst of the media carnage.

A Bloomberg report said AT&T already had a decision in hand against Microsoft and its use of speech technology for VoIP. That partial settlement came in 2004, and Microsoft has been seething ever since as they believe a lower-court ruling tripled their liability exposure.

The justices get to try and sort out whether or not Microsoft violated a 23-year-old law on patent protection:

Roberts won’t be participating when the Supreme Court hears arguments tomorrow because he owns Microsoft stock. The rest of the justices will scrutinize a 1984 law aimed at preventing companies from circumventing U.S. patent rights by shipping components overseas to be assembled into an infringing product. The export law says supplying those components constitutes patent infringement.

Microsoft says that provision doesn’t apply because the versions of Windows it sends to foreign computer makers –either on “golden master” disks or as encrypted digital files — don’t end up on computers.

The Cornell Law School said the Supremes have two questions before them in considering the case:

(1) Whether digital software code

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