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Poll: Internet Edges Networks As Public’s Source For News

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Photo Credit: APBye bye Walter Cronkite, Brian Williams and Scott Pelley. Hello Google, Yahoo and Drudge.

A new Rasmussen Reports poll finds that traditional network news continues to fall as the nation’s source for news. The internet now is a bigger source of news for Americans than network TV, by a point, 25 percent to 24 percent.

Cable TV is still king, with 32 percent of the 1,000 likely voters Rasmussen polled getting their news from that source. Newspapers barely register a 10 percent, and radio is the source of news for 7 percent of the country.

The poll gauged how well the public trusted the media and if they see a bias. On both fronts, it is bad news.

Just 6 percent of the nation considers the national media “very trustworthy,” and nearly half believe reporters are more liberal than they are, said Rasmussen.

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13,753 Gov’t Requests for Google E-Mail Data in 2012, Most Without a Warrant

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Photo Credit: APAmerican government agencies – state, local, and federal — made a record 13,753 requests to read emails or gather other information sent through Google’s Gmail and other services in 2012, more than half without warrants, according to statistics released by Google.

The total number of users about whom government agencies wanted information also set a record at 31,072, up from 23,300 in 2011, the first year Google began reporting the data. The discrepancy comes because government agencies request information on multiple users or accounts at the same time.

Most of these 13,753 requests, 6,542 of 8,438 in the latter half of 2012 alone, were done without a search warrant, Google data show. Google did not make available any detailed data prior to June 2012, nor did it make available which requests came from the federal government and which came from state or local law enforcement agencies, when asked by CNSNews.com.

Google spokesman Chris Gaither said the company only started tracking which type of legal authority – subpoena, court order, or search warrant – was used in the latter half of 2012. Google issues biannual reports on the requests for user data it receives from government agencies from around the world, including ones in the U.S.

Google announced in June 2012 that it had 425 million active Gmail subscribers, making it the largest e-mail provider in the world. It also provides users the ability to store documents via its Google Drive service, phone service via Google Voice, YouTube, personal blogs via Blogger, as well as email hosting services for corporate clients through Gmail.

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Google Refuses Obama’s Request to Take Down Anti-Muslim Video but Restricts Access in Muslim Countries

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Google is refusing a White House request to take down an anti-Muslim clip on YouTube, but is restricting access to it in certain countries.

The White House said Friday that it had asked YouTube to review whether the video violated its terms of use. Google owns YouTube, the online video sharing site.

YouTube said in a statement Friday that the video is widely available on the Web and is “clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube.”

The short film “Innocence of Muslims” denigrates Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. It played a role in igniting mob violence against U.S. embassies across the Middle East. And it has been blamed for playing a role in violence in Libya, where the U.S. ambassador and three others were killed though the exact cause of the attacks is under investigation.

U.S. and Libyan officials are investigating whether the protests in Libya were a cover for militants, possibly al-Qaida sympathizers, to carry out a coordinated attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and kill Americans. Washington has deployed FBI investigators to try and track down militants behind the attack.

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Google kicks off gay rights campaign in countries opposed to homosexuality

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Google is stepping up its activism on gay rights issues in nations with anti-homosexuality laws on the books, a company official announced Saturday as he kicked off Google’s new “Legalize Love” campaign.

The campaign will focus on countries like Singapore, where certain homosexual activities are illegal, and Poland, which has no legal recognition of same-sex couples.

“We want our employees who are gay or lesbian or transgender to have the same experience outside the office as they do in the office,” Google executive Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe said at the Global LGBT Workplace Summit in London, according to a report on Dot429, a networking site for LGBT professionals. “It is obviously a very ambitious piece of work.”

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) will focus on developing alliances with local companies and on supporting grassroots organizing efforts. Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and Ernst and Young have already signed on as partners.

A U.S.-based Google spokesman cast the campaign as a framework for supporting the already-ongoing activism efforts of Google employees around the globe. Its focus will mostly be international, especially targeting parts of Europe and Asia, he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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