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Sunday, November 23, 2008

A Pembroke Pines, Florida teenager killed himself Wednesday, November 19, while broadcasting on the live video site Justin.tv. After making suicide threats and being encouraged by Justin.tv viewers and Bodybuilding.com forum members, Abraham K. Biggs, 19, committed suicide by taking an overdose of opiates and benzodiazepine, which had been prescribed for his bipolar disorder.

Biggs first began blogging about his planned suicide 12 hours before the actual event. He died after taking pills and lying on the bed in front of the webcam. After the broadcast, viewers who apparently thought it was a hoax posted messages such as “OMG”, “LOL”, and “hahahah”.

Hours later, after being alerted by viewers who had noticed that Biggs had stopped breathing, law enforcement and paramedics arrived, discovered his body, and covered the camera. The Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office has reportedly confirmed Biggs’ death.

According to Montana Miller of the Bowling Green State University, the circumstances of this case were not shocking: “If it’s not recorded or documented, then it doesn’t even seem worthwhile. For today’s generation it might seem, ‘What’s the point of doing it if everyone isn’t going to see it?'”

Biggs’ sister Rosalind was angry that neither the website nor its viewers reacted soon enough to save him. “They got hits, they got viewers, nothing happened for hours,” she said. She described him as “very happy” and “friendly and outgoing.” “On a normal day, you couldn’t really tell that he got as low as he did.” However, he did have relationship problems with his girlfriend, according to a friend.

Mental health professionals have warned about the possibility that other mentally troubled people would copy his actions. According to Dr. David Shaffer of Columbia University, “Any video showing it as heroic or romantic or glamorous could reduce the anxiety people might feel about suicide. It becomes a respectable behavior and lowers the threshold of suicide.” He and other psychiatrists recommend that potentially suicidal teens talk to others and “tell what’s going on.”

Saturday, June 10, 2006

On Thursday, Congress turned down the “Net Neutrality Amendment” to the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act (COPE Act) 269-152.

The COPE Act is designed to make it easier for telecommunications companies to offer cable TV service and strengthen competition. Proponents hope it would lower the price of high-speed Internet for consumer by enabling Internet service providers to bundle phone, data, video and mobile phone services. The act is the first major telecommunications bill to come before Congress in over a decade, and it passed by 321-101 vote on Thursday.

Portions of the “Net Neutrality” amendment to the COPE Act sought to assure that communication companies who provide Internet services treated all data delivery passing through their connections equally. It specified that each broadband provider has the duty “not to block, impair, degrade, discriminate against, or interfere with the ability of any person to use a broadband connection to access, use, send, receive, or offer lawful content, applications, or services over the Internet.” The amendment’s passage would have prevented AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and other broadband providers from charging content providers like Google, Yahoo, Amazon or eBay for priority access to their networks. Democrats were largely in favour of the legislation with 140 Ayes and 58 Noes, whereas only 11 Republicans voted for the measure, with 211 against.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi argued that “The imposition of additional fees for Internet content providers would unduly burden Web-based small businesses and start-ups,” and that “They would also hamper communications by noncommercial users, those using religious speech, promoting civic involvement and exercising First Amendment freedoms.”

The phone companies and their Congressional allies argued that the restrictions in the amendment would discourage investment in upgrading networks. Chief technology officer for BellSouth William L. Smith told the Washington Post that telephone companies should be able to charge companies for having their content load faster than that of competitors. “If I go to the airport, I can buy a coach standby ticket or a first-class ticket,” Smith said. “In the shipping business, I can get two-day air or six-day ground.”

The legislation has been subject to intense lobbying by telecommunication companies on one side, and content providers on the other. The bill is due to be discussed next in the Senate, where lobbying efforts from both sides are expected to intensify. The White House said that it supports the current bill.

Monday, November 5, 2012

The following is the twelfth and final edition of a monthly series chronicling the U.S. 2012 presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after a brief mention of some of the month’s biggest stories.

In this month’s edition on the campaign trail: a fan of Wikinews asks a critical question at the Second presidential debate; Gary Johnson discusses Syria and foreign intervention with Wikinews, and three candidates give the their final plea to voters ahead of the November 6 election.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

David S. Touretzky, prominent free speech activist and critic of Scientology, discussed his opinions on the recent Internet backlash against the Church of Scientology in an interview with former Scientologist and Wikinews reporter Nicholas Turnbull. The recent conflict on the Internet between critics of Scientology and the Church has been spurred on in declarations by a nebulous Internet entity using the name Anonymous that the Church of Scientology “will be destroyed”. Anonymous has directed recent protests at Scientology centres across the world, which have attracted significant numbers of individuals supporting the cause. In recent e-mail correspondence with Wikinews, a representative of the Church of Scientology declared that the Church considers the activities of Anonymous to be illegal, and that Anonymous “will be handled and stopped”.

Touretzky, a research professor in artificial intelligence and computational neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University, has been a prominent critic of the Church of Scientology since mid-1995, and has been protesting against Scientology vociferously since then; he has also run websites that publish material that Scientology wishes to keep suppressed from the public eye, such as extracts from Scientology’s formerly-confidential Operating Thetan (OT) materials. Touretzky views the actions of the Church of Scientology as being “a threat to free speech”, and has endured harassment by the Church of Scientology for his activities.

The Church of Scientology continues to suffer damage to its public reputation through increased exposure on the Internet and vocal protests by Scientology critics such as Prof. Touretzky. A recent event that focused intense attention on Scientology’s totalitarian attitude was the leak of an internal Church of Scientology propaganda video to the Internet video sharing site YouTube, in which celebrity Scientologist Tom Cruise spoke heavily in Scientology’s jargon and stated that that “we [Scientology] are the authorities” on resolving the difficulties of humanity. The declaration of war by Anonymous followed shortly after this leak, in the form of a video posted to the Internet.

The ongoing dispute, cast by some as Scientology versus the Internet, brought Scientology terms such as “SP” (Suppressive Person, an enemy of Scientology) and “KSW” (Keeping Scientology Working) into general usage by non-Scientologists from the late 1990s onwards; increased attention has been drawn to Scientology by the release of the Cruise video in addition to media coverage. This focus has caused an even greater propagation of these terms across the outside world, as Touretzky comments in the interview.

Wikinews asked Prof. Touretzky about the impact that the activities of Anonymous will have on Scientology, the public relations effect of the Tom Cruise video, the recent departure of individuals from the Church of Scientology’s executive management, the strategies that Anonymous will employ and Touretzky’s experiences of picketing the Church.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

On October 14, 2008, Canadians will be heading to the polls for the federal election. Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada candidate Marie Crawford is standing for election in the riding of Toronto—Centre.

Marie is a Director of Animal Alliance of Canada, a separate but related organization. She volunteers her time for Animal Alliance, but unlike party leader Liz White, does not work out of their office.

Wikinews contacted Marie, to talk about the issues facing Canadians, and what they and their party would do to address them. Wikinews is in the process of contacting every candidate, in every riding across the country, no matter their political stripe. All interviews are conducted over e-mail, and interviews are published unedited, allowing candidates to impart their full message to our readers, uninterrupted.

The incumbent in this riding is National Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jack Layton. Other than Crawford, trying for the riding are Liberal Andrew Lang, Sharon Howarth (Green), and Christina Perreault (Conservative), Marcell Rodden (Marxist-Leninist), and Bahman Yazdanfar (Canadian Action Party), and independent John Richardson. The riding has existed federally since 1979, and has the seat has been occupied by Bob Rae (NDP, 1979–1982), Lynn McDonald (NDP, 1982–1988), Dennis Mills (Liberal, 1988–2004), and Layton (NDP, 2004 to present).

For more information, visit the campaign’s official website, listed below.