The Internet President


Book Description

--Winner "Cross Genre" Category 2018 American Fiction Awards-- [Audiobook narrated by Grammy-winning Stefan Rudnicki and award-winning Gabrielle De Cuir.] Part wacky adventure, part political thriller, this unconventional story will keep you guessing. "One of the most original and creative stories I have read in a very long time." --Goodreads reader with over 1,500 ratings! James Wong built a billion-dollar software company with childhood friend Maria Cortez, but a shady investor stole their company. In a video game, James would defeat the villain with a power-up. Maria tells him there aren't power-ups in real life, but James finds the ultimate power-up watching TV in a bar: become president. Making important life decisions in a bar, what could go wrong? Could a non-politician change their name to None of the Above and get elected president? When James and Maria land their own reality TV show, they try to answer that question. They must uncover secrets about their company and themselves, as the world falls apart around them. It will take every ounce of Maria's strength and every crazy idea James can muster to get their company back. Can they survive the chaos of reality TV, the corruption of Washington, and the dark forces aligned against them? Background: When I began writing the book in 2014, I was afraid that many of my ridiculous subplots, like a presidential candidate with his own reality TV show, were too hard to believe. Then Trump ran for president, and the book became more plausible by the day. When events similar to my book began to happen during the 2016 election cycle, it got so weird that I stopped reading the news. When I went back later to research the "Fact Versus Fiction" section after the ending, I found even more events similar to the book had happened. What readers are saying: "prepare for rib-cracking laughter." (Online Book Club reader) "A thriller in every meaning of the word. If you enjoy action books at all, or if you just want some form of fictional closure on the baffling mess that was the 2016 election, I cannot recommend this book highly enough." -- Official Review, Online Book Club (4 out of 4 stars rating) "The story keeps you guessing and in the third act the intrigue and politics give way to a conclusion full of heart-pounding action." "There's a surprise around every corner--be prepared to laugh, cry and for your heart to race." "Thrilling pacing and breakthrough concepts leaves the reader seared in thought." "Amazingly captures the new political landscape that is forming day-by-day. Fans of political thrillers, conspiracy theories, or those looking for a satirical escape from the dreary news that we see every day will certainly enjoy The Internet President: None of the Above" -- Official Review, Thriller Magazine (5 out of 5 stars rating and a finalist for International Thriller Award)




The Internet of Us: Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data


Book Description

"An intelligent book that struggles honestly with important questions: Is the net turning us into passive knowers? Is it degrading our ability to reason? What can we do about this?" —David Weinberger, Los Angeles Review of Books We used to say "seeing is believing"; now, googling is believing. With 24/7 access to nearly all of the world’s information at our fingertips, we no longer trek to the library or the encyclopedia shelf in search of answers. We just open our browsers, type in a few keywords and wait for the information to come to us. Now firmly established as a pioneering work of modern philosophy, The Internet of Us has helped revolutionize our understanding of what it means to be human in the digital age. Indeed, demonstrating that knowledge based on reason plays an essential role in society and that there is more to “knowing” than just acquiring information, leading philosopher Michael P. Lynch shows how our digital way of life makes us value some ways of processing information over others, and thus risks distorting the greatest traits of mankind. Charting a path from Plato’s cave to Google Glass, the result is a necessary guide on how to navigate the philosophical quagmire that is the "Internet of Things."




Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age


Book Description

As the plugged-in presidential campaign has arguably reached maturity, Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age challenges popular claims about the democratizing effect of Digital Communication Technologies (DCTs). Analyzing campaign strategies, structures, and tactics from the past six presidential election cycles, Stromer-Galley reveals how, for all their vaunted inclusivity and tantalizing promise of increased two-way communication between candidates and the individuals who support them, DCTs have done little to change the fundamental dynamics of campaigns. The expansion of new technologies has presented candidates with greater opportunities to micro-target potential voters, cheaper and easier ways to raise money, and faster and more innovative ways to respond to opponents. The need for communication control and management, however, has made campaigns slow and loathe to experiment with truly interactive internet communication technologies. Citizen involvement in the campaign historically has been and, as this book shows, continues to be a means to an end: winning the election for the candidate. For all the proliferation of apps to download, polls to click, videos to watch, and messages to forward, the decidedly undemocratic view of controlled interactivity is how most campaigns continue to operate. In the fully revised second edition, Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age examines election cycles from 1996, when the World Wide Web was first used for presidential campaigning, through 2016 when campaigns had the full power of advertising on social media sites. As the book charts changes in internet communication technologies, it shows how, even as campaigns have moved from a mass mediated to a networked paradigm, the possibilities these shifts in interactivity seem to promise for citizen input and empowerment remain farther than a click away.




The Internet and the 2016 Presidential Campaign


Book Description

Although many developments surrounding the Internet campaign are now considered to be standard fare, there were a number of new developments in 2016. Drawing on original research conducted by leading experts, The Internet and the 2016 Presidential Campaign attempts to cover these developments in a comprehensive fashion. How are campaigns making use of the Internet to organize and mobilize their ground game? To communicate their message? The book also examines how citizens made use of online sources to become informed, follow campaigns, and participate. Contributions also explore how the Internet affected developments in media reporting, both traditional and non-traditional, about the campaign. What other messages were available online, and what effects did these messages have had on citizen’s attitudes and vote choice? The book examines these questions in an attempt to summarize the 2016 online campaign.




The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet


Book Description

As seen on CBS 60 Minutes "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." Did you know that these twenty-six words are responsible for much of America's multibillion-dollar online industry? What we can and cannot write, say, and do online is based on just one law—a law that protects online services from lawsuits based on user content. Jeff Kosseff exposes the workings of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which has lived mostly in the shadows since its enshrinement in 1996. Because many segments of American society now exist largely online, Kosseff argues that we need to understand and pay attention to what Section 230 really means and how it affects what we like, share, and comment upon every day. The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet tells the story of the institutions that flourished as a result of this powerful statute. It introduces us to those who created the law, those who advocated for it, and those involved in some of the most prominent cases decided under the law. Kosseff assesses the law that has facilitated freedom of online speech, trolling, and much more. His keen eye for the law, combined with his background as an award-winning journalist, demystifies a statute that affects all our lives –for good and for ill. While Section 230 may be imperfect and in need of refinement, Kosseff maintains that it is necessary to foster free speech and innovation. For filings from many of the cases discussed in the book and updates about Section 230, visit jeffkosseff.com




Who Controls the Internet?


Book Description

Is the Internet erasing national borders? Will the future of the Net be set by Internet engineers, rogue programmers, the United Nations, or powerful countries? Who's really in control of what's happening on the Net? In this provocative new book, Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu tell the fascinating story of the Internet's challenge to governmental rule in the 1990s, and the ensuing battles with governments around the world. It's a book about the fate of one idea--that the Internet might liberate us forever from government, borders, and even our physical selves. We learn of Google's struggles with the French government and Yahoo's capitulation to the Chinese regime; of how the European Union sets privacy standards on the Net for the entire world; and of eBay's struggles with fraud and how it slowly learned to trust the FBI. In a decade of events the original vision is uprooted, as governments time and time again assert their power to direct the future of the Internet. The destiny of the Internet over the next decades, argue Goldsmith and Wu, will reflect the interests of powerful nations and the conflicts within and between them. While acknowledging the many attractions of the earliest visions of the Internet, the authors describe the new order, and speaking to both its surprising virtues and unavoidable vices. Far from destroying the Internet, the experience of the last decade has lead to a quiet rediscovery of some of the oldest functions and justifications for territorial government. While territorial governments have unavoidable problems, it has proven hard to replace what legitimacy governments have, and harder yet to replace the system of rule of law that controls the unchecked evils of anarchy. While the Net will change some of the ways that territorial states govern, it will not diminish the oldest and most fundamental roles of government and challenges of governance. Well written and filled with fascinating examples, including colorful portraits of many key players in Internet history, this is a work that is bound to stir heated debate in the cyberspace community.










Tools and Weapons


Book Description

The instant New York Times bestseller. From Microsoft's president and one of the tech industry's broadest thinkers, a frank and thoughtful reckoning with how to balance enormous promise and existential risk as the digitization of everything accelerates. “A colorful and insightful insiders’ view of how technology is both empowering and threatening us. From privacy to cyberattacks, this timely book is a useful guide for how to navigate the digital future.” —Walter Isaacson Microsoft President Brad Smith operates by a simple core belief: When your technology changes the world, you bear a responsibility to help address the world you have helped create. This might seem uncontroversial, but it flies in the face of a tech sector long obsessed with rapid growth and sometimes on disruption as an end in itself. While sweeping digital transformation holds great promise, we have reached an inflection point. The world has turned information technology into both a powerful tool and a formidable weapon, and new approaches are needed to manage an era defined by even more powerful inventions like artificial intelligence. Companies that create technology must accept greater responsibility for the future, and governments will need to regulate technology by moving faster and catching up with the pace of innovation. In Tools and Weapons, Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne bring us a captivating narrative from the cockpit of one of the world's largest and most powerful tech companies as it finds itself in the middle of some of the thorniest emerging issues of our time. These are challenges that come with no preexisting playbook, including privacy, cybercrime and cyberwar, social media, the moral conundrums of artificial intelligence, big tech's relationship to inequality, and the challenges for democracy, far and near. While in no way a self-glorifying "Microsoft memoir," the book pulls back the curtain remarkably wide onto some of the company's most crucial recent decision points as it strives to protect the hopes technology offers against the very real threats it also presents. There are huge ramifications for communities and countries, and Brad Smith provides a thoughtful and urgent contribution to that effort.




The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2012


Book Description

The newest installment in a quadrennial series that now spans five presidential elections, this book presents a broad overview of the presidential nomination process and showcases some of the most interesting work now being done on the politics of presidential selection. Written by leading experts, including a former presidential candidate, The Making of Presidential Candidates 2012 covers a wide selection of topics, including the Tea Party, digital media campaigns, how television covers the nomination process, election forecasting, and campaign finance. The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2012 is valuable for students, specialists, and all readers with an interest in the ever-evolving presidential nomination process and American elections.