Mediagazer: Anonymous goes nuclear; everybody loses? (Molly Wood/CNET)

5:30 PM ET, January 20, 2012

Top News:

Dodd Calls for Hollywood and Silicon Valley to Meet — WASHINGTON — When Jack Valenti walked the halls of Congress, friends by the dozen gripped, grinned and took note of what was worrying the movie industry's dapper chief lobbyist. — Christopher J. Dodd now fills Mr. Valenti's shoes.

Discussion: AllThingsD, Marco.org, PC Magazine, Electronic Frontier Foundation, CNET, Hillicon Valley, Los Angeles Times, The Verge, Techdirt and Deadline.com, more at Techmeme »

Jeff Roberts / paidContent:

Leaders In House And Senate Postpone Anti-Piracy Efforts — The push for controversial legislation known as SOPA and PIPA appears to have unraveled completely after leaders in both the House and Senate put the bills on ice. — In a press release this morning, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tx) …

Clay Shirky:

Pick up the pitchforks: David Pogue underestimates Hollywood — Writing in his blog on the New York Times yesterday, David Pogue, one of the Times' tech columnists, advises toning down the alarmist rhetoric over SOPA, suggesting that opponents of the bill (and its Senate cousin PIPA) should Put Down the Pitchforks.

Discussion: MediaShift, Hillicon Valley, Pogue's Posts, Citizen Media Law Project, MarketingVox News & Trends and Berkman Center, more at Techmeme »

Molly Wood / CNET:

Anonymous goes nuclear; everybody loses? — #OpMegaUpload: like watching “War Games” play out, but with cyber-bombs. — In the aftermath of the Jan. 18 SOPA/PIPA blackout protests, the Internet community had amassed quite a bit of goodwill, flexed its muscles in a friendly, humorous …

Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:

Why the feds smashed Megaupload — The US government dropped a nuclear bomb on “cyberlocker” site Megaupload today, seizing its domain names, grabbing $50 million in assets, and getting New Zealand police to arrest four of the site's key employees, including enigmatic founder Kim Dotcom.

Jeremy Pelofsky / Reuters:

Megaupload site wants assets back, to fight charges — (Reuters) - The Internet website Megaupload.com, shut down by authorities over allegations that it illegally peddled copyrighted material, is trying to recover its servers and get back online, a lawyer for the company said on Friday.

Discussion: Better Broadband Blog, PC Magazine and WebProNews, more at Techmeme »

Erika Fry / CJR:

What I Saw at the South Carolina Debate — Or, how campaign coverage is like industrial farming — SOUTH CAROLINA — The campaign media horde congregated in Charleston Thursday night for the Republican presidential debate, eagerly billed by host network CNN as the “First in the South.”

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel, BuzzFeed, The Politico, msnbc.com and The Daily Dish

Politico:
CNN's John King puts himself on firing line

Discussion: Poynter, Media Decoder, New York Times, Poynter, Erik Wemple, Washington Times, WLTX-TV, The Daily Beast, TVNewser, Online NewsHour, The Caucus, Inside Cable News and Erik Wemple

Greg Sandoval / CNET:

Facebook in talks to replace YouTube as Vevo's host — Facebook has held talks with Vevo about moving the music-video service away from YouTube and over to the social network's platform, sources with knowledge of the talks told CNET. — While the sources said the discussions are very preliminary …

Discussion: paidContent, SplatF, Inside Facebook, WebProNews, ZDNet, PC Magazine, Softpedia News, Fortune, VatorNews, The Next Web, The Tech Trade, Digiday, Electronista, Mashable!, mediabistro.com, Gizmodo and Business Insider, more at Techmeme »

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

BuzzFeed Makes Another Splashy Hire, This One From Rolling Stone — BuzzFeed, the social Web site that made a splash last month by hiring the blogger Ben Smith away from Politico, will signal its expansion plans on Friday by announcing that it has hired Doree Shafrir of Rolling Stone to oversee culture coverage.

Discussion: The New York Observer and FishbowlNY

Telegraph:

News International faces FBI phone hacking probe — Rupert Murdoch's is facing an FBI investigation into phone hacking in America after News International admitted intercepting voicemails of Jude Law, the actor, while it is thought he was in the United States. — Jude Law

Discussion: Adweek, The Huffington Post, FishbowlNY, Deadline.com and Bloomberg

Josh Halliday / Guardian:
Daily Mail publisher loses challenge to Leveson inquiry anonymity ruling

Discussion: Editor's Blog, Associated Press and Press Gazette

Guardian:
How News Group hid phone-hacking scandal

Discussion: Media & Entertainment, Press Gazette, CJR and Neville Thurlbeck

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Raju Narisetti leaving Washington Post to return to WSJ — After three years at The Washington Post, managing editor Raju Narisetti is returning to The Wall Street Journal as managing editor of the Journal's Digital Network. Narisetti worked at the Journal for 13 years before stints at Mint and the Post …

Discussion: Dow Jones, paidContent:UK, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Media Decoder, FishbowlDC and paidContent

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Iran's Press TV loses UK licence — Ofcom revokes English-language channel's licence for breaching the Communications Act — Press TV, the Iranian state broadcaster's English-language outlet, has been forced off the air in the UK after Ofcom revoked its licence for breaching the Communications Act.