Berkman Buzz: Week of July 28, 2008

August 01, 2008

BERKMAN BUZZ:  A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations.  If you'd like to receive this by email, just sign up here. The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University

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*Phorm violates its own privacy policy, and an Ernst & Young audit misses it? Hal Roberts takes a closer look
*Dan Gillmor takes a look at advocacy journalism
*Citizen Media Law Project intern Jason Crow puts video of a cyclist being body slammed by a police officer into perspective
*Harry Lewis discusses the showdown between the IOC and China over Internet censorship
*Charles Nesson wants to give juries back the power to decide
*The Digital Natives Project Reporters in the Field series offers us a glimpse into the ever-adapting world of print media
*Weekly Global Voices: "Blogging Since Infancy: reducing the digital divide in Uruguay"
*Weekly Publius Essay: "Evgeny Morozov: How I Learned to Stop Worrying about New Media Literacy and Love the Internet"

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The full buzz.

"Phorm has been energetically defending itself against complaints about the privacy risks of their systems. As part of its campaign to legitimize itself, Phorm prominently links to an audit completed by Ernst & Young at the end of last year. I eagerly followed the link the first time I saw it hoping for a report full of technical details about Phorm system, only to find that Ernst & Young’s statement within the audit consists of a single page says only that, in the opinion of Ernst & Young, Phorm follows its own privacy policy. No meaningful explanations of what tests they ran on the system. No technical information about the system at all..."
From Hal Roberts' blogpost, "Ernst & Young audit overlooks Phorm’s violation of its own privacy policy"

"Doing journalism at its most basic level is a combination of two essential tasks. The first is reporting — gathering information via research, interviews, etc. The second part is telling your audience what you’ve learned — writing (in the broadest sense, including video, audio, graphics and more) and editing.  The demolition of the professional journalism business model has led to a sharp decline, one I don’t see slowing anytime soon, in traditional media. Many people in the field have been asking an obvious question with a not-so-obvious answer: Who will do the serious journalism we need in the future..."
From Dan Gillmor's blogpost, "Helping the Almost-Journalists Do Journalism"

"A tourist captured video of a New York City police officer body slamming a bicycle rider who was participating in a group ride through Times Square. The video posted on YouTube depicts the incident in a way that is inconsistent with the series of events described in the police officer's criminal complaint. The bicycle rider, Christopher Long, was taking part in a monthly group ride with dozens of other riders called Critical Mass that draws attention to issues that concern bicycle riders in urban centers such as car traffic congestion and poor street layout for riders..."
From the Citizen Media Law Project blogpost, "Searching for Both Sides of the Bicyclist Body Slam Video"

"Not to put too fine a point on it, the Chinese government has double-crossed the International Olympic Committee. Having agreed that journalists would be given the same electronic freedoms they enjoyed at previous Olympic games, the Chinese now say they just meant they’d be given free access to that part of the Web relevant to the games themselves. And the IOC, which presumably had a chance to stand for something about press freedoms, caved. An IOC spokesman says that the IOC and the Chinese agreed that 'some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered Games related...'"
From Harry Lewis' blogpost, "An Olympic Showdown Over Internet Censorship?"

"I start from a presumption of liberty. Think of the founders of our nation. They assembled as people who had the liberty to create a government. They knew that historically all governments reflect their own self-interest and come over time to limit, if not destroy the collective power of the people. They believed that a government built of checks and balances would ensure protection of their (and our) liberty into the future.One method for doing this was to provide that the government must present its case for taking away a citizen’s liberty to a jury of peers, and that the jury must unanimously agree to a general verdict of guilt as warrant for the State to take his liberty. The jury will endure as a bulwark so long as it decides the whole case — the law and the fact. When all other balances fail, the jury will remain as the last protection of liberty..."
From Charles Nesson's blogpost, "Re-Empowering Juries"

"We’re taking a break from “The Ballad of Zack McCune” this week to give you a glimpse into the world of print media — specifically, Harvard Magazine and the ways in which it is handling society’s shift towards the digital. As a small but growing pool of alumni trades reading class notes for skimming Facebook news feeds, how will alumni publications like Harvard Magazine continue to capture their interest? Cathy Chute, the magazine’s publisher, grappled with these questions and gave us some insight into Harvard Magazine’s current approach..."
From the Digital Natives Project blogpost, "Is Harvard Magazine Coping in a Digital Age?"

"Uruguay is undergoing a historical process. Within 2009, all children and teachers of primary and public schools in the country will have their own laptops (OLPC) donated by the State. President Tabare Vasquez approved a presidential decree which established the Project Ceibal. The project is named after Ceibo’s flower which is considered the national flower of Uruguay. The project’s goal is not just providing equipment and accessibility to the education centers but to ensure their use, teacher training, content development and promoting them to the community...'"
From Rezwan's blogpost for Rising Voices, "Blogging Since Infancy: reducing the digital divide in Uruguay"

"While it offers a useful general perspective on the future of media literacy, Dan Gillmor’s essay doesn’t fully answer some of the most fundamental questions about the relationship between education, media, and democracy. Let me sketch just a few of them: 1. Can we do anything to provide for better media literacy and more transparency in the digital age? 2. Should we actually do anything about it? 3. How exactly do we go about it, if, indeed, we could and should..."
From Evgeny Morozov's essay for the Publius Project: "How I Learned to Stop Worrying about New Media Literacy and Love the Internet"