Timothy Karr
Timothy Karr is the senior director of strategy for Free Press Action Fund, the advocacy organization that fights for everyone’s rights to connect and communicate. Follow him on Twitter: @TimKarr.
Articles by this author
 |
Views Wednesday, October 16, 2019 Can Anyone Stop Facebook from Poisoning Democracy? Freedom (to lie) isn’t free. For the campaign to re-elect Donald Trump it costs $1.5 million a week. And that’s just last week’s tab. In exchange, Trump’s team gets to spread false and misleading political ads across Facebook’s social network. This includes a 30-second ad that makes the... Read more |
 |
Views Wednesday, September 04, 2019 A Pivot to Digital Shouldn't Spell the End of Local News Last Saturday, the final printed edition of the Vindicator rolled off the presses in Youngstown, Ohio. After 150 years, the city’s last remaining daily closed its doors, handing its subscription list and masthead to the Tribune Chronicle , based in nearby Warren, which has begun to produce a... Read more |
 |
Views Tuesday, February 26, 2019 Want to Save Journalism? Tax the Attention Economy Way, way back in 2009 as Facebook was celebrating its fifth anniversary, CEO Mark Zuckerberg blogged that the company was founded “to give people the tools to engage and understand the world around them.” In the 10 years since then, Facebook’s user base has multiplied more than 10 times. But... Read more |
 |
Views Friday, February 01, 2019 On Net Neutrality and Why Ajit Pai Is No Jedi The FCC's chairman's rationale for ending Net Neutrality in 2017 was that existing Title II rules had supposedly shackled the forces of the marketplace, “deter[ing] the massive infrastructure investment that we need.” If the rules were allowed to stand, he said, we’d “pay the price in terms of less... Read more |
 |
Views Monday, January 07, 2019 Chairman Pai Can't Win for Losing No amount of spin can undo that. But that hasn’t stopped Pai from trying and trying, again and again. His latest came in the form of a statement , released Wednesday, touting the expiration of a bipartisan congressional effort to restore the Net Neutrality protections. “I’m pleased that a strong... Read more |
 |
Views Friday, December 14, 2018 How We're Getting Net Neutrality Back A year ago today, the Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Ajit Pai made one of the worst, most abnormal decisions in the agency’s history. It ignored public consensus and voted to strip away the Commission’s authority to protect internet users from companies like AT&T, Comcast and... Read more |
 |
Views Monday, June 11, 2018 Net Neutrality Can Still Be Saved A future without net neutrality is here. Well, almost. The Federal Communications Commission will take away the rights of internet users on Monday. Officially, the repeal of the 2015 net neutrality protections ― a repeal that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a Trump pick, had pushed for ― will take effect... Read more |
 |
Views Thursday, February 15, 2018 Net Neutrality Politics Is Local O’Neill is less known for another saying that also holds true: “You can’t assume anything in politics. That’s why every Saturday I walk around my district.” It’s easy for cloistered Washington politicos to assume that Net Neutrality is dead, undone in December by the Trump FCC and its Verizon-... Read more |
 |
Views Friday, January 05, 2018 Trump's Appalling Record on Internet Freedom at Home Makes Him a Weak Champion of Rights Overseas But it’s another story when it comes to defending online rights in the United States. On Tuesday, Under Secretary of State Steve Goldstein told the Iranian government to stop blocking social-media sites being used to help organize protests across the country. Goldstein also encouraged Iranians to... Read more |
 |
Views Thursday, November 16, 2017 Trump's Secret Weapon Against a Free Press Journalists in Manila had very little time to cover Monday’s meeting between President Donald Trump and his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte. But it was enough to witness one aspect of the budding bromance between these two world leaders. "While Trump is attacking reporters on the front lines... Read more |