The Justice Department indicted Reuters social media editor Matthew Keys on Thursday for allegedly conspiring with the hacktivist collective Anonymous to deface the website of The Los Angeles Times and other Tribune Co. newspapers. According to the indictment (read it here), Keys, using the handle AESCracked, gave Anonymous hackers access to Tribune servers. Keys had recently been fired from Tribune-owned TV station KTXL FOX 40 and still had valid login credentials — so he allegedly unleashed Anonymous, urging the group to “go f**k some s**t up.”

They did, kind of. The above headline ran on LATimes.com for roughly a half hour on Dec. 14, 2010

“Keys is being charged under the general federal conspiracy statute and under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the same act under which Aaron Swartz was charged,” says Justin Peters at Slate. Swartz, the co-founder of Reddit, committed suicide in January before he was to face charges for allegedly downloading millions of files illegally from MIT computers. He, like Keys, was threatened with jail time, of up to 35 years. And the similarities don’t end there. The vagueness of the CFAA — passed in 1984, to nab “sophisticated, malicious hackers” targeting the only entities networked at the time: Banks, universities, and the federal government — allows prosecutors to push for “outrageously severe” punishments like this, for whatever reasons. In this case, “just like with the Swartz case, the feds are going to use the threat of a huge maximum sentence to intimidate Keys into accepting a plea bargain.”

Peters goes on:

“The DOJ doesn’t want to lock Keys up for 25 years, but they’ll be more than happy to pretend they do in order to get the outcome they really want — likely for Keys to spend no more than a few months in jail and provide information about members of Anonymous…. The government wants Anonymous pretty badly, but I’m not sure what their actual game is here. Do they think Keys will roll over and lead them to other Anonymous members in exchange for a reduced sentence? Are they trying to make an example out of Keys so that other people will think twice before cooperating with Anonymous? Or are they simply being disproportionate and unreasonable out of habit? Apparently, they didn’t take away any lessons from the Aaron Swartz case.” 

 25 years for “providing login information that resulted in a joke headline which lasted 30 minutes” is “enormously steep, given the alleged crime,” says Sam Biddle at Gizmodo. 

More info…

State of the Union Live Chat: Before President Obama gives his fourth State of the Union tonight, we’ll be chatting live with White House reporter Paul Brandus, founder of West Wing Reports. 

Brandus is an award-winning journalist and independent member of the White House press corps. In 2011, he won the Short Award for “Best Journalist on Twitter.” He’ll be responding to your questions and comments about the President’s 2013 State of the Union address. Come chat!

• When: Tonight at 7:30
• Where: The Week’s Facebook page
• What: A discussion about tonight’s State of the Union. What do you want to hear Obama say? What will he skip completely, and why? How will Marco Rubio’s response position him within the GOP? 
• How to participate: Tune in on Facebook around 7:15 to start submitting your questions and comments. Brandus will jump in at 7:30. 

In the mean time, here are the 5 things Obama is likely to talk about in his speech tonight. 

Tonight, President Obama will address Congress and the nation in his fourth State of the Union address, which is set to begin at 9 p.m. EST. If you won’t be in front of a television — and even if you will be — be sure to follow along via social media. Here’s how:  

• Before the speech: At 7:30 p.m., chat live with White House reporter Paul Brandus on The Week’s Facebook page. He’ll give you the lowdown on what to expect from tonight’s address.
  
  
• During the speech: On Twitter, subscribe to @TheWeek’s list of key political players, which includes both reporters and politicians who will be tweeting about the address. Separately, you’ll want to follow the hashtag #SOTU.  

More: A social media guide to the SOTU

“It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment it happened — but at some point, Twitter became a dark place…

…Once everyone was on Twitter, everyone’s problems were on Twitter. The early adopters might have been tech-utopians, but the succeeding waves were angry cynics and partisan cranks who used the technology to make the world even louder and worse than it was before Twitter. 

Twitter has become like high school, where the mean kids say something hurtful to boost their self esteem and to see if others will laugh and join in. Aside from trolling for victims after some tragedy, Twitter isn’t used for reporting much anymore. But it is used for snark. 

The medium is dangerous and tempting. When Abraham Lincoln was mad, he would famously write people scathing letters. He would then file them in his desk drawer, never to be sent. Abe was lucky he didn’t have Twitter…”

Why I hate Twitter

$100, you say? 

Why is Facebook charging $100 for messages? 

The Israeli military has launched a major assault on Gaza. And they’re live-tweeting it.

In the social-media war between Obama and Romney, one appears to be ahead. Take a look at the numbers: 

1.2 million — New Facebook followers Obama gained in a burst last week following the second presidential debate

21.2 million — Number of Twitter followers Obama has

1.5 million — Number of Twitter followers Romney has

37 — Tweets Obama’s campaign sent out during the second debate

117,374 — Times they were retweeted

2 — Tweets Romney’s campaign sent out during the second debate

6,810 — Times they were retweeted

More numbers…

(Source: theweek.com)

Obama’s appearance on Reddit yesterday was met with an “internet explosion” and “tweets of glee,” says Adrian Chen at Gawker. Team Romney could never have pulled this off — when his campaign saw Twitter mentions of Obama’s “AMA,” they probably assumed it was “another meeting between the president and the American Medical Association,” jokes Erik Kain at Forbes. But let’s face it, says Chen: “All Obama has to do to make nerds swoon is sit at a MacBook like he probably does every day and log onto a website.”

 5 takeaways from Obama’s AMA appearance

(Source: theweek.com)

Eminem, the 39-year-old rapper from Detroit, has become the most liked person on Facebook.

GOOD DAY FOR:

Naked diversity
A Bollywood star becomes the first Indian woman to appear on the cover of Playboy. [Business Insider]

Stock-savvy tweeters
Twitter introduces cashtags, which are clickable stock symbols similar to hashtags that allow users to track tweets about stocks. [Newser]

The real Slim Shady
Rapper Eminem becomes the most liked person on Facebook, garnering more than 60 million fans. [Daily Dot]

BAD DAY FOR:

Shushing
A group of women allegedly stabs a man on the subway after he tells them to quiet down. [Gothamist]

Baby grands
The popularity of electronic keyboards reportedly leads an increasing number of people to throw away their pianos, dismantle them for scrap, or burn them as firewood. [The New York Times]

Smuggling sweets
Police arrest a man who was allegedly attempting to smuggle 45 Snickers bars filled with crystal meth into the U.S. [Consumerist]

For more winners and losers see: Good day, bad day: July 30, 2012

NBC’s coverage of the London Olympics is infuriating tech-savvy sports fans, who have branded the network’s coverage of the games with the embarrassing Twitter hashtag: #NBCFail. 

Because London is several hours ahead of the United States, most big events happen during America’s morning or early afternoon. And while NBC is showing these events live via (sometimes glitchy) online streams, the network isn’t broadcasting them on TV until primetime — when many fans already know the results. Among the other gripes: NBC’s questionable decision to edit out an opening ceremony tribute to victims of a London terrorist attack, and Brian Williams’ on-air spoiling of a swimming event’s results before the tape-delayed broadcast. Is NBC blowing the $1.18 billion it invested to air the games stateside?

Is NBC botching its coverage of the Olympics, or does the network know exactly what it’s doing?

(Source: theweek.com)