Deregulator: Alive since '85!

  “You can’t hear the bass.” Emily, a headphone-wearing tween whose expression reads, “I can fix this,” glares at an iPad screen displaying several Zoom-like windows and toolbars. A few feet away, the bluegrass band  Swift Creek  is playing on an outdoor stage before about 160 people on a pleasant but humid July night in Bynum, North Carolina. The iPad controls a feed to whoever might be streaming on YouTube or Facebook. And while the upright bass sounded just fine to the folks nearby, its sound isn’t apparent on the livestream. It’s the band’s first in-person gig since November 2019. They brought their PA system, making some of the volunteers’ work easier. They ran the feed straight from the band’s mixing board to a  SlingStudio Hub , which wirelessly sends the feed to an app on the iPad. The app lets the tablet work like a separate mixing board, one that doesn’t affect what the in-person audience hears. With the band’s sound system in place, the volunteers from Byn...

Originally published at socialfabricnews.com Critics, left and right, who seek new laws and regulations to stifle the impact of social media technologies should pay a visit to Bynum, North Carolina. Residents of the former mill town, between Pittsboro and the Fearrington community in Chatham County, show how online communication can bring thousands virtually to the front porch of a general store to enjoy traditional songs, stories, and fellowship. I spent last Friday with my old friend Cynthia Raxter, who worked alongside me at the front desk of the Carolina Inn for most of the 1980s. When I left the Inn, I entered the wild and wacky world of policy journalism. She moved to UNC Health Sciences Library, and retired from the university in 2012. Cindy’s now the head honcho at  Bynum Front Porch , a nonprofit set up to sustain the Bynum General Store, which opened during the Great Depression and could have been lost to neglect unless a dedicated group of locals had pitched in to save i...