Five Years Ago

This week in 2020, we featured a guest post about the many problems with the idea of upload filters, while Poland was trying to get them excluded from the EU Copyright Directive. Twitch was continuing to trip over itself in response to its DMCA apocalypse, and we dug into just how bad things were going for it, while GitHub and the EFF were pushing back against the DMCA takedown of youtube-dl. The Trump campaign’s SLAPP suit against CNN was easily tossed out, while the DNC was suing Georgia’s governor over his bullshit claims of voter registration hacking, Trump fired his Cybersecurity Director after he debunked Trump’s claims of election systems fraud, and Lindsay Graham was blaming social media for undermining the election while facing credible accusations of trying to do so himself.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2015, we covered many aspects of the fallout from the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris, and specifically the pathological response of justifying surveillance and calling for more of it. Politicians were quick to blame Ed Snowden and push for encryption bans or backdoors, and Senator McCain introduced some legislation to that effect, while Senator Cotton introduced one to extend unconstitutional NSA surveillance. We noted that France already expanded surveillance twice in the last year, and wondered if there was any evidence that would convince the intelligence community that more surveillance won’t help — then it came out that the Paris attackers coordinated via unencrypted SMS. Eventually we wrote up a summary of all the nonsense that had happened so far, while France responded by rushing through a new internet censorship law.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2010, MLB was going on a YouTube takedown blitz, WordPress was being a bit too quick in complying with DMCA takedowns, and Warner Bros. was predictably demanding the heads of whoever leaked a Harry Potter movie. Rupert Murdoch’s paywalls were costing his newspapers attention and due credit, while Arianna Huffington was sued for “stealing” the idea for The Huffington Post. Also, Universal Music ramped up its astroturf campaign around a looming vote on COICA in the Senate (a bill the MPAA was also defending with blatantly false claims), and the lame duck Senate Judiciary Committee moved it forward with 19 votes, leading Senator Wyden to say he would block it.

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