So we’ve all had a good laugh after hearing about Woody Harrelson‘s disastrous AMA session on Reddit two days ago, where a proxy for the actor (let’s face it, that wasn’t him typing those answers) basically gave vague answers to half of the questions and in-no-way subtle plugs for his upcoming movie Rampart to the other half. It was a public relations nightmare, and while it certainly raised awareness about the movie, it definitely backfired.

If the only place you get your news is from the Sunday talk shows, you would not have been informed in the slightest today about the political and technological battle over the Stop Online Piracy Act last week. Yes, there was a huge primary yesterday that completely up-ended the Republican contest, but you’d figure a powerful people-powered protest resulting in some of the biggest and most visited websites either blacking out or using their resources to raise awareness of the bill would garner at least a brief discussion today.

In perhaps what was the biggest surprise of his show tonight, Bill Maher defended the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act, even as the bill has been temporarily shelved, arguing that “there is a moral dimension” to online piracy and dismissed concerns that the bill would harm internet freedom as a “red herring.” He jokingly called online piracy “caucasian looting” and insisted that even if pirates are ‘just because you’re sitting at your computer in your pajama bottoms doesn’t mean you’re not stealing.”

After the White House received several petitions on the controversial House bill Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), officials in the executive branch officially responded, highlighting that they support an end to piracy but will staunchly oppose any bill that impairs creativity or threatens freedom of speech. The response was posted on WhiteHouse.gov today and details what the next steps for the White House will be on the matter.

In the midst of all this talk of jobs and wars and families, one of the issues the Republican presidential candidates have not addressed that much is the internet. Specifically, their positions on regulating the internet. Over the weekend, Rick Santorum was asked by a New Hampshire resident during a campaign stop if he supported or opposed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which would give the government more authority to regulate the internet and crack down harder on piracy.

According to Associated Press reporter Thomas Beaumont, the Republican campaigns have been much quieter than in previous election years, with no campaign having a paid staff larger than 20 members. Beaumont attributes the smaller staff sizes to how campaigns utilize technology to reach voters.

One of the biggest legislative battles heading into next year is undeniably going to be the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill backed by Hollywood that takes a rather strong stance on policing the internet for copyrighted material. Hundreds of companies from 3M to American Apparel are throwing their support behind the bill, including the [...]

Joe Lieberman has always been a great pioneer for internet freedom. Last year, he suggested that the United States should implement an internet kill switch in the event of a cyberattack by taking its cues from China. Now Lieberman is calling for the world’s most popular search engine to censor material that could potentially be used to spread terrorist information.

Dan Rather made a rather surprising statement on The Chris Matthews Show today when he said that one of the driving forces behind the Occupy Wall Street protests “is a woman operating out of her apartment in New York.” Rather argued earlier on the show that the Occupy Wall Street protests were a “mirror image” of the Tea Party protests, or at least have the potential to be.

With Tulane professor and MSNBC contributor Melissa Harris Perry at the helm today on The Last Word, the program has put a fair amount of emphasis on civility, today dedicating an entire segment of the show to getting along. The premise: the anonymity of the internet has given people like Perry’s crazy Uncle Fred the freedom to say offensive and hurtful things that hurt the political discourse. To give them an example of how to conduct a proper discussion, Perry found common ground with former RNC Chair Michael Steele, who made sure to emphasize that it isn’t his side that’s doing all the insulting.

At some point, you’re going to die. At at some point, shortly after that, people will stop caring. There are two antidotes: celebrity and the internet.

In this week’s New York magazine, John Swansbourg takes an entertaining look at the deft comic stylings of NBC News Anchor Brian Williams and how he has developed a legitimate side career in comedy. As one who was an early chronicler of same (see: SNL maiden voyage, Colbert WristStrong stunt, Jon Stewart spar-fests, earnestly following up on a 2005 quip about Bea Arthur). I appreciated seeing how Swansbourg traced his gestation from anchor-who-hosts-lots-of-dinners to legit OMG-is-this-a-residuals-check? funnyman. And it’s nice to see BriWi no longer apologizing for cracking a few jokes outside the 6:30 – 7pm timeslot. Good times all around.

As 13-year-old singer Rebecca Black‘s “Friday” video racks up YouTube clicks – and Black reportedly earns loads of cash for her surprising hit song – we’re left to wonder about what Black’s story says about the music industry, the Internet, and us. Ark Music Factory, the company behind Black and other young stars, should be thrilled with all the attention, says Rhodri Marsden in The Independent, since their “whole business model is about reaction, not content.” But they have virtually “disappeared” from the spotlight faced with the inevitable backlash, which is “baffling – like pretty much everything connected to the ‘Friday’ phenomenon.”

It’s 2011: A large country is in violent revolt because of cyber-censorship, the world’s most wanted criminal is a hacker whose life’s work is to disseminate government secrets, most of us use our telephones as maps, music players, and news feeds, and yet 17 years ago, no one knew what the internet even was. Back in 1994, getting the Today Show crew to properly read an email address– much less understand what it meant– was a feat for the ages.

Amidst the chaos of the Egyptian protests it sometimes takes one single jarring image to describe what the barrage of messy, raw information could never properly explain. Perhaps the more disturbing image coming out of what has now become a deadly national uprising arrived early this morning, as protesters took the corpse of one of the protest victims and carried it defiantly through the streets of Cairo.

Twitter activity is suggesting a wide-range outing of Internet access in Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana & Michigan. This is Comcast’s second major DNS outage. The last outage occurred on November 28th and impacted the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, from DC to New Hampshire. Fortunately, Mediaite has advice for out of pocket Comcast users (who, hopefully, are accessing this site via smart phone)

Rachel Maddow heard the same rumors about the cost of President Barack Obama’s upcoming trip to India everyone else did. Unlike Glenn Beck, who decided to focus (mostly) on other aspects of the trip on his program, Maddow focused on the oft-cited “$200 million per day” cost estimate…and why it shouldn’t be so oft-cited at all. Oh, and lesbian vampires factored into the equation, too.

New reports have surfaced that the federal government is requesting access to the personal accounts of individuals on various online utilities for intelligence-gathering purposes. Besides going after Facebook and Twitter accounts, authorities are hoping to get congressional support for eavesdropping on Skype conversations and other social networking information.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid delivered an address to the attendees at this year’s Netroots Nation progressive blogger conference to encourage writers to continue writing against the Republicans and thank them for their support, even though their relationship may be strained.

Do you ever wonder why it’s always that one conservative aunt that forwards you those chain emails about Barack Obama‘s secret plot to turn America into a socialist utopia? Salon‘s perusal of internet rumors in the last decade shows that conservatives are both more likely to spread false rumors about liberals via fowarded emails that liberals are about their opponents.

If you can’t beat ‘em… after an off-color joke by Colombian singer Juanes led him to call it a “vehicle for terrorists” and a “current of conspiracy,” Venezuelan TV host (and part-time leader) Hugo Chavez has finally given up and vowed to join Twitter. This news comes shortly after his crusade to jail inconvenient bloggers ended with a promise to become one himself.

It was one of the biggest stories of last week, an irresistible metaphor-made-real. While Wall Street was having its way with the US economy, employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission were literally playing with themselves. What wasn’t widely reported, though, was that the story was several months old, and was revived by opponents of financial reform, who thought it would be an effective counter to news of the SEC’s fraud complaint against Goldman Sachs.

Fox News commentator Bernie Goldberg and Daily Show host Jon Stewart are in the midst of a little disagreement. You see, Stewart wants Fox News to “go f*** yourselves,” and Goldberg thinks Stewart is a hypocrite and a coward for this. Stewart replied with a literal gospel choir of “f*** you”s, and Goldberg told him to “man the hell up” today on America Live. We thought this would be the end of it until last night’s Daily Show. We were wrong.

Since the relaunch of GOP.com, the Republicans have found cyberspace to be the stomping grounds of merry pranksters ready to turn any part of their web identity– from an innocent URL shortener to their personalized header– into the next big meme. The internet’s latest victim is Maine gubernatorial candidate Steve Abbott, who was horrified to find his campaign ads replaced by videos of college students streaking.

C-SPAN has completed arguably the most exciting academic task since the founding of Wikipedia: they have uploaded 23 years of their video archives to a free, user-friendly database online. It’s a landmark in government transparency and a godsend to anyone embarking on an American history research project.