Berkman Buzz: Week of October 20, 2008

October 24, 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.

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*Charles Nesson offers his services to the McCain campaign
*David Weinberger issues a new JOHO newsletter
*Doc Searls declares blogs are alive and kicking
*The Internet & Democracy Project looks at the use of the DMCA to stifle political speech
*Ethan Zuckerman wants to take the Kentucky out of KFC, or the KFC out of Kentucky
*Digital Natives intern Diana Kimball takes us to the invisible line between right and wrong
*danah boyd thinks we need to put privacy settings in context
*Publius Essay: "Vote Suppression in a Digital Age" by Tova Andrea Wang
*Weekly Global Voices: "Speaking of Sexual Harassment: Noha makes Egyptians proud!"

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"Back in June, Presidential Candidate John McCain led the internet policy debate by offering to use the gold standard in search to help him find his ideal running mate: Google. His search must have turned up the YouTube videos of Ms. Palin’s former beauty pageant days or the latest www.palinaspresident.com new media because just a few weeks later, McCain double-clicked on the Alaskan Governor – and a Saturday Night Live imposter Tina Fey – to complete the Republican ticket..."
From Charles Nesson's blogpost, "who is better on copyright - mccain or biden"

"The lead article this time is particularly half-baked. But at least half-baked stuff is chewy. Unfortunately, it's also sort of wet. And it can expand in your digestive tract, causing cramps and, if untreated, internal bleeding. You're Welcome..."
From David Weinberger's October 18, 2008 issue of the JOHO newsletter

"I've been blogging since 1999. I've also been flickring, facebooking and tweeting for most of the time those services have been around. All are good for some things, but not everything, least of all for what blogging does best. As personal journals on the Web go, blogs have no substitute. Twitter is fine for 140-character micro-postings, and for the ecosystem surrounding it. But micro-posts are not journals..."
From Doc Searls' blogpost, "Blogging = Freedom"

"Super interesting op-ed piece from Larry Lessig coming in this week from the New York Times on the extent to which the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is being increasingly used this election season to stifle political speech and debate. In his usual style, Lessig’s got some solid arguments about the extent to which the extremely strong provisions of the DMCA are being used to presumptively block content online which would be better protected under fair use..."
From the Internet & Democracy Project blogpost, "DMCA Out In The Wild, Seen Censoring Political Speech"

"I’ve had an artistic idea I’ve wanted to play with for some months now. It was inspired by a conversation with Dale Joachim, who uses cellphones to study owl populations. By calling forests during the night and broadcasting owl calls, he can listen through GSM-enabled microphones and hear responses. This idea of listening into spaces has morphed into a much weirder idea, one that I’ll likely never get a chance to do… so I might as well share it with you..."
From Ethan Zuckerman's blogpost, "Woices, and weird windows on the world"

"Well, “right” and “wrong” feel suspiciously similar when both are accessed through desktop clients. One of the main findings of Born Digital regarding piracy was that, out of a sample group of Digital Natives, 90% engaged in “illegal downloading.” The other 10% downloaded music through iTunes. But only when their parents had given them gift cards to do so. For Digital Natives, downloading songs through Limewire or similar programs doesn’t feel “wrong,” necessarily. Downloading music through iTunes doesn’t feel “right.” Both feel, very simply, like the obvious way to get music..."
From the Digital Natives Project blogpost, "Piracy: The Invisible Line Between Right and Wrong"

"A few days ago, Gilad's eyes opened wide and he called me over to look at his computer. He was on Facebook and he had just discovered a privacy loophole. He had maximized his newsfeed to get as many photo-related bits as possible. As a result, he was regularly informed when his Friends commented on other people's photos, including photos of people with whom he was not Friends or in the same network as. This is all fine and well. Yet, he found that he could click on those photos and, from there, see the entire photo albums of Friends-of-Friends..."
From danah boyd's blogpost, "Putting Privacy Settings in the Context of Use (in Facebook and elsewhere)"

"In the last several election cycles, 'deceptive practices' have been used to suppress voting and skew election results. Usually targeted at minorities and in minority neighborhoods, such activities intentionally disseminate false or misleading information that ultimately disenfranchises potential voters. Historically, deceptive practices have usually taken the form of flyers posted in a particular neighborhood; more recently 'robocalls' have targeted voters. Now, we must prepare for deceptive practices 2.0: false information disseminated via the Internet, email, and other new media..."
From Tova Andrea Wang's essay for the Publius Project, "Vote Suppression in a Digital Age"

"In an unprecedented case, sexual harasser Sherif Gommaa was sentenced to three years behind bars, hard labour, and was also ordered to pay 5,001 Egyptian pounds fine to Noha Roshdy Saleh for groping her in the street. Zeinobia celebrated the court ruling saying that Noha's victory is Laila's victory...'"
From Marwa Rakha's blogpost for Global Voices, "Speaking of Sexual Harassment: Noha makes Egyptians proud!"