What is Article 13?
The European Parliament is set to vote next week on a proposed new law: the copyright directive. Article 13 is part of that law, and applies to “certain uses of protected content by online services.”
The world contemplated by Article 13 is a whole other Internet.
It would require websites and content platforms, like Medium, to use “content recognition technologies” to “to prevent the availability on their services of works or other subject-matter identified by rightholders.” …
This is a questionnaire Medium sends to third party service providers before we work with them to ensure their data collection, storage, and security practices are consistent with our standards. We’re putting this in the public domain under Creative Commons license cc0 with no rights reserved — feel free to copy, modify, or use within your own organizations.
Privacy & Security at Medium
Questionnaire for Technology Service Providers
At Medium, protecting our users’ privacy and the security of their data is among our highest priorities. Occasionally, we work with technology service providers that may differ from us in their data collection, storage, and security policies. …
Fellow Californians, please join us in opposing AB 2880, which would allow and encourage California to extend copyright protection to works made by the state government. We think it’s a bad idea that would wind up limiting Californians’ ability to post and read government information on platforms like Medium.
On Medium, people can write at length about policy (among other things) and respond to each other. We’re proud that in the few years it’s been around, Medium has helped leaders and citizens talk with each other about matters of substance.
The White House regularly posts letters, interviews, photo collections, and…
Around April 10, we began hearing reports that Medium was blocked in China. The first evidence of a block involved WeChat. Over the following days, the various tools for testing site availability across China’s ISPs showed indications of blocking ranging from partial to full resolution failure for Medium’s web interface, both http and https. Currently, services like GreatFire.org show a more or less complete block of all posts on Medium.
We’ve heard several theories, and have a few of our own. But, we don’t know with any certainty the reason for the block. We haven’t spoken with Chinese authorities about it. If and when we have an update, we’ll let you know.
Here’s our second transparency report. It covers all takedown or information requests received in 2015, including government requests, and the actions we took in response.
Takedown Requests
Copyright
This section covers requests to take down content based on copyright infringement. They’re broken out into notices and counternotices received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, other copyright-related grievances, posts reinstated, and accounts suspended.
We review each DMCA takedown notice to make sure it includes all information required by the law. We send copies of takedown demands to the Lumen database (formerly Chilling Effects), unless prohibited by law. Here’s our copyright and DMCA policy.
…
Medium co-filed an amicus brief yesterday supporting Apple in its refusal to create custom code for the FBI that would weaken iPhone security. This brief was a joint effort with 16 other Internet companies, including Automattic, Reddit, LinkedIn, Kickstarter, GitHub, and Twitter. Combined, over a billion people use our products and services.
What does the FBI want Apple to do?
Granting the FBI’s request, the court ordered Apple to write custom code that allows the FBI to brute force open an iPhone used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook.
The custom code would update the phone’s OS to do…
Medium Users,
As some of you have noted, Medium’s now blocked in Malaysia.
Here’s what happened.
The Sarawak Report’s website has been blocked in Malaysia since summer 2015. They continued to reach the Malaysian public through Medium.
Last Wednesday, January 20, we received an email from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission:
The post at issue had been published on Medium by the Sarawak Report two days earlier — “Najib Negotiates His Exit BUT He Wants Safe Passage AND All The Money! EXCLUSIVE DISCLOSURE.”
On January 21, we responded to the MCMC:
One of our goals at Medium is to treat our users better than anyone else. And a way we do this is by trying to make it actually clear (not just legally defensible) what we are doing with data and analytics.
To this end, we’ve designed Medium to respect users who browse “Do Not Track”-style. Last month, we were honored when the Electronic Frontier Foundation singled us out for providing users clear guidance as one of the first implementers of EFF’s Do Not Track (DNT) policy.
But complying with DNT presents a new challenge for sites (like Medium) that have…
Yesterday afternoon Medium co-filed an amicus brief in support of net neutrality at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. This brief is a joint effort with Automattic, Reddit, Squarespace, Yelp, and Twitter. We’re glad to be part of this group and proud of the brief. Net neutrality is crucial for our platform and our users.
What’s the case?
United States Telecom Association, et al. v. FCC and USA. It’s basically a bundle of cases brought by various broadband providers. They’re suing the FCC.
Why are they suing the FCC?
Because they don’t like the Net Neutrality. Earlier this year, the…
Some Medium users have noticed that ad-blockers are blocking legit parts of Medium, such as our first-party analytics and icons. This is not good because they prevent you from making fullest use of the site (and at worst, new users might not realize what’s missing). To be clear, we don’t currently have any ads on the site and we don’t allow third-parties to track our users across the Internet as a result of their visiting our site.
We wanted to let everyone know:
