. If you create or post one, remember to pay attention to the source of the image.

When you see a meme going around, give a thought to the subject of that meme image, whose life may forever be changed.

Meme histories are tracked from first appearance, providing a reference of viral memes.

When memes or the subjects of a meme are used for commercial purposes without permission, the meme creator may sue, as the effect of the commercial use on the market value of the original meme usually prevents a finding of fair use.

Lantagne and Patel agree on the inability of copyright law to fully address the subject of memes, given their cultural importance as what Lantagne calls “pure engines of expression with their own symbolic vocabulary” while also relying, in Patel’s words, on “massive unauthorized copying” to attain such importance.

“[j]ust as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.”

she identifies use ranging from “static,” a relatively straightforward reproduction of an image, to “mutating,” in which the role of the internet is directly responsible for the meme’s alteration from the original to the point that “[m]utating memes, because of their unique characteristics, are more like ideas,” thus unprotected under copyright.

Meme creators and posters have been sued for using people’s images without permission, especially those who were not already public figures. In 2003, the parents of the unwilling star of the “Star Wars Kid” video sued their son’s classmates for posting the video online.

Sometimes the meme creator is also the image creator, but often, when involving movie stills or images of celebrities, the image’s copyright is owned by someone else. American copyright law gives creators the exclusive rights of reproduction, modification, distribution, performance, and display. The viral spread of a meme infringes on theses protections as the original image is modified and then displayed, distributed and reproduced when posted and reposted. However, within copyright law exists the doctrine of fair use, which allows for use of a copyrighted work in the creation of new work without permission, as long as the use fits within certain parameters. A legal finding of fair use takes into account the following factors: The purpose of the use, The amount of the work to be used, The effect of the use on the market for or value of the original work, and The nature of the copyrighted work. There is no official definitive answer for whether a use can be considered fair, as every case must be judged on its own merits, but there are some types of use generally allowed under fair use, including criticism and commentary, parody, journalism, education, and research.

Meme creators and posters have been sued for using people’s images without permission, especially those who were not already public figures.

If you create or post one, remember to pay attention to the source of the image. Your best bet is to start with an image or clip that is already labeled for reuse or is in the public domain, meaning out of copyright protection altogether. Google Images search tools provides such a filter, or try the Creative Commons search for work licensed for reuse via Creative Commons licenses.

The viral spread of a meme infringes on theses protections as the original image is modified and then displayed, distributed and reproduced when posted and reposted.

When memes or the subjects of a meme are used for commercial purposes without permission, the meme creator may sue, as the effect of the commercial use on the market value of the original meme usually prevents a finding of fair use. In 2013, the owners of the cats featured in the “Nyan Cat” and “Keyboard Cat” memes won a lawsuit against Warner Bros. and 5th Cell Media for respectively distributing and producing a video game using images of their cats.

Know Your Meme must sometimes take down posts due to cease-and-desist letters from copyright holders due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Your best bet is to start with an image or clip that is already labeled for reuse or is in the public domain, meaning out of copyright protection altogether. Google Images search tools provides such a filter, or try the Creative Commons search for work licensed for reuse via Creative Commons licenses.

2003, the parents of the unwilling star of the “Star Wars Kid” video sued their son’s classmates for posting the video online. Though the suit was settled, the video did not disappear, and the Star Wars Kid learned to deal with his fame.

Annotate

There are also sobering lessons here about the limits and ethics of “sousveillance,” the use of our handheld devices to record from “below.” (This is in contrast to surveillance from on-high, a la CCTV or drones.)

Of course, the sexual implication is something he’d be praised for, while the woman is attacked.

At a certain level of virality, you cannot stop motivated people on the internet from piercing your veils.

The story’s charm disguises the invasion of privacy at its heart: the way technology is both eroding our personal boundaries and coercing us in deleterious ways.

Of course, the sexual implication is something he’d be praised for, while the woman is attacked.

What had been private is now uncontrollably crowdsourced. Your consent becomes a trifling detail in a story about you that suddenly belongs to everyone else. It doesn’t matter otherwise.

The story’s charm disguises the invasion of privacy at its heart: the way technology is both eroding our personal boundaries and coercing us in deleterious ways.

Marla Wilson, 35, of San Francisco, said she was appalled when she saw white supremacists marching so brazenly in Charlottesville. Doxxing, she believed, was an effective way to make people think twice about being so bold with their racism.

“For a long time it was only a certain quarter of people on the internet who would be willing to do this,” Ms. Coleman said. “It was very much hinged on certain geek cultures, but there was an extraordinary quality to the Charlottesville protest. It was such a strong public display I think it just opened the gates.”

The ethics — and even the definition — of doxxing is murky. It is the dissemination of often publicly available information. And, some at the protest asked, are you really doxxing a person if he or she is marching on a public street, face revealed and apparently proud? It is not as though they are hiding their identities.

“People went berserk,” Ms. Coleman said. “That, to me, was this interesting turning point where it showed the general public would be willing to jump into the fray.”Charlottesville has made doxxing even more commonplace.“For a long time it was only a certain quarter of people on the internet who would be willing to do this,” Ms. Coleman said. “It was very much hinged on certain geek cultures, but there was an extraordinary quality to the Charlottesville protest. It was such a strong public display I think it just opened the gates.”

In short, once someone is labeled a Nazi on the internet, that person stays a Nazi on the internet.Internet vigilantism has a checkered history.

“Some of what is happening now will make these white supremacists realize why their grandparents wore hoods,” Ms. Wilson said. “At least then there was shame.”

But Tony McAleer, a former white supremacist leader who now runs Life After Hate, a rehabilitation program for neo-Nazis, called doxxing a “ passive aggressive violence.”

Now the online hunt to reveal extremists has raised concerns about unintended consequences, or even collateral damage. A few individuals have been misidentified in recent weeks, including a professor from Arkansas who was wrongly accused of participating in the neo-Nazi march.

Mathematics is not a race-neutral subject

defines domestic terrorism but not one that charges people who commit acts of terrorism in America. People who conspire with international terrorists—even if they aren’t materially involved in an act of violence—are charged with “acts of terrorism transcending international boundaries.” But someone who sends pipe bombs to Democrats; plows through a crowd of anti-racism protesters in Charlottesville, Va.; or shoots up a church in Charleston, S.C., will not face domestic terrorism charges.

white supremacists and right-wing violence are the biggest domestic terror threat but also admitted that federal agencies aren’t really doing anything about it.

To be clear, there is a law that defines domestic terrorism but not one that charges people who commit acts of terrorism in America.

When it comes to any form of resistance or fight for equality, America will always paint black people as terrorists.

nvestigation admitted that prejudiced assumptions against the Black Lives Matter movement, Muslim Americans and black identity extremists was all a lie. Intelligence officials sat in front of lawmakers and openly admitted that white supremacists and right-wing violence are the biggest domestic terror threat but also admitted that federal agencies aren’t really doing anything about it.

And in spite of the ADL’s report that white supremacists were responsible for 78 percent of extremist murders in 2018,

were charged with hate crimes instead of domestic terrorism simply because “there’s no domestic terrorism charge.”

But when it comes to white people’s stance on black protest, as the great poet and philosopher Montero Lamar Hill once said: “Can’t nobody tell me nothing.”

But when it comes to white people’s stance on black protest, as the great poet and philosopher Montero Lamar Hill once said: “Can’t nobody tell me nothing.”

lways, always hover, and see what they are verified for.

Now imagine a world where checking your mirrors before switching lanes was rare, three standard-deviations-out behavior. What would the roads look like?

You can absolutely do this every time before you share. And given it is so easy, it’s irresponsible not to.

It’s not enough to check the stuff that is suspicious: if you apply your investigations selectively, you’ve already lost the battle.

the only viable literacy solution to web misinformation involves always checking any information in your stream that you find interesting, emotion-producing, or shareable.

(Here’s a short rant of mine from 2009

Scan the stories. If you want to be hypervigilant, scan for sources you recognize, and consider sharing one of the stories featuring original reporting instead of the tweet.

But I end up coming back to this simple stuff because I can’t shake the feeling that digital literacy needs to start with the mirror and head-checks before it gets to automotive repair or controlled skids. Because it is these simple behaviors, applied as habits and enforced as norms, that have the power to change the web as we know it, to break our cycle of reaction and recognition, and ultimately to get even our deeper investigations off to a better start.

Go up to the “omnibar” Strip off everything after the domain name, type wikipedia and press enter This generates a Google search for that URL with the Wikipedia page at the top Click that link, then check in the sidebar that the URL matches. Forty-nine out of fifty times it will. The fiftieth time you may have some work to do.

One of the things I’ve been trying to convince people for the past year and a half is that the only viable literacy solution to web misinformation involves always checking any information in your stream that you find interesting, emotion-producing, or shareable.

When a story is truly breaking, this is what it looks like. Our technique here is simple. Select some relevant text. Right-click or Cmd-click to search Google When you get to Google don’t stop, click the “News” tab to get a more curated feed Read and scan. Investigate more as necessary.

Go up to the “omnibar” Strip off everything after the domain name, type wikipedia and press enter This generates a Google search for that URL with the Wikipedia page at the top Click that link, then check in the sidebar that the URL matches.

But I end up coming back to this simple stuff because I can’t shake the feeling that digital literacy needs to start with the mirror and head-checks before it gets to automotive repair or controlled skids. Because it is these simple behaviors, applied as habits and enforced as norms, that have the power to change the web as we know it, to break our cycle of reaction and recognition, and ultimately to get even our deeper investigations off to a better start.

There are some hard problems with misinformation on the web. But for the average user, a lot of what goes wrong comes down to failure to follow simple and quick processes of verification and contextualization. Not after you start thinking, but before you do.

The FBI said it has stopped using the "Black Identity Extremist" tag and acknowledged that white supremacist violence is the biggest terrorist threat this country faces.

black people specifically are 500 times more likely to die this way (Xu, Murphy, Kochanek, & Bastian, 2016).

The Anti-Defamation League released its annual report, “Murder and Extremism in the United States 2018,” on Wednesday, which tracked murders perpetrated by all types of domestic extremists over the past year. According to their research, right-wing extremists killed more Americans in 2018 than they have in any year since 1995. The 50 extremist-related murders also made last year the fourth-deadliest year since 1970.The murders were overwhelmingly linked to white Americans. Only three deaths (or 6 percent of the extremist-related murders in 2018) were perpetrated by a black person.

According to the official, a significant issue that the bureau faces is that the federal criminal code has made it more challenging to bring charges against domestic terror suspects than in cases involving international terrorism or foreign terrorist organizations.

First there’s the Twitter bio and the headshot. The headshot is an original photo — a reverse image search here doesn’t turn up Maisy, but it doesn’t turn up anyone else — it’s less likely to be a stolen photo.

This belief system, which I have come to think of as “educationism,” is grounded in a familiar story about cause and effect: Once upon a time, America created a public-education system that was the envy of the modern world. No nation produced more or better-educated high-school and college graduates, and thus the great American middle class was built.