Berkman Buzz: Week of September 28, 2008

October 03, 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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*Internet & Democracy Project blog hosts reflections on its Burma case study, released this week
*An ONI affiliate reveals Chinese surveillance of Skype messages
*Doc Searls tells us what it means to be Scobleized
*Rebecca MacKinnon looks at Jimmy Wales' meeting with Chinese Internet officials
*Diana Kimball sinks her teeth into the Facebook news feed
*Sam Bayard lays out some of the laws for documenting your vote
*Dan Gilllmor teaches an important lesson in media literacy
*Weekly Global Voices: "Brazil: Do deforestation and elections mix?"

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"Berkman friend and New School Doctoral Candidate Veronica Alfaro responds to our Burma case study, and encourages a broader view. Veronica writes: The article seems to express a certain disappointment in that the Saffron Revolution, while engaging activists around the globe, 'did not lead to tangible political change.' While the remarks made by the text are sharp, they tend to emphasize the difficulties of acknowledging 'the efficacy of Internet-based activism...'"
From the Internet & Democracy Project blogpost, "Veronica Alfaro Responds to the Internet and Democracy Burma Case Study"

"Groundbreaking research by an ONI affiliate made major news today. Nart Villeneuve, a fellow at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, revealed in a report Wednesday TOM-Skype, a special software for using Skype in Chinese, is being used to snoop on text chats containing certain keywords relating to topics such as Taiwanese independence and Falun Gong. Additional information not related to certain keywords has also been captured; Villeneuve's research indicates that perhaps certain usernames also trigger the system..."
From Jillian York's blogpost for the OpenNet Initiative, "ONI Affiliate Reveals Chinese Surveillance of Skype Messages"

"Traditional journalism is static. Its basic units are the article, the story, the piece. The new journalism is live. It doesn’t have a basic unit any more than a river or a storm have a basic unit. It’s process, not product. Even these things we call posts, texts, tweets and wikis are less unitary than contributory. They add to a flow, which in turn adds to what we know..."
From Doc Searls' blogpost, "Being Robert Scoble"

"Last week, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales had a meeting with Cai Mingzhao, Vice Director of China's State Council Information Office - the government body whose 'Internet Management Division' is in charge of censoring online content. They discussed Jimmy's concerns about censorship. No deals or agreements were made, but Jimmy tells me that the meeting has opened a channel of communication and dialogue between the Wikipedia community and the Chinese government..."
From Rebecca MacKinnon's blogpost, "Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales meets China's censors"

"In September, 2006, Facebook users revolted. The debut of the News Feed—a feature that allowed users to 'get a quick view of what their friends are up to, including relationship changes, groups joined, pictures uploaded, etc., in a streaming news format.' (via) Thousands of students joined a Facebook group dedicated to protesting the News Feed. College students denounced the feature as 'stalkerish.' An uproar; a measured response from Facebook. Privacy features. Fine-grained controls. The uproar quieted. And people got used to the News Feed. In fact, it’s now hard to imagine life on Facebook without it..."
From Diana Kimball's blogpost for the Digital Natives Project, "Facebook Stalking: The News Feed as Digital Dossier"

"As part of a new project spearheaded by YouTube and PBS called 'Video Your Vote,' the CMLP is doing research on the state laws regulating activities at polling places on Election Day.  Our specific focus is on laws that impact voters' ability to document their own voting experiences through video and still photography, as well as their ability to carry out other newsgathering functions, such as interviewing other voters outside of polling places.  In this post, I'll look at how California's election laws affect these activities..."
From Sam Bayard's blogpost, "Documenting Your Vote: California Election Laws"

"'NY Times: Apple Denies ‘Citizen Journalist Report’. Apple’s stock took a brief roller coaster ride this morning after a CNN “citizen journalist” wrote that an “insider” reported that Steve Jobs had been rushed to the hospital with chest pains.' Aha! Those infernal citizen journalists are ruining the world! Calm down. CNN got used. Maybe it was an innocent mistake. Quite possibly, however, this was the work of someone whose intention was to briefly torpedo the Apple share price. If so, there’s a high probability that this person will be caught and, one hopes, punished..."
From Dan Gillmor's blogpost, "CNN’s Small Mistake, Apple Shareholders’ Big One"

"The Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) has disclosed the news of a huge increase in deforestation in the past few months, particularly in the States of Pará and Mato Grosso. In some States, the rates are three times higher than they were in August 2007. The Minister for the Environment, Carlos Minc, interpreted this as due to the election period. According to him, 'No mayor wants to be obstructive at such times. No governor wants to be obstructive either. The IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) staff do their job, but they need the support of the local police...'"
From Deborah Icamiaba's blogpost for Global Voices, "Brazil: Do deforestation and elections mix?"