Berkman Buzz: Week of January 26, 2009

January 30, 2009

BERKMAN BUZZ:  A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations.  If you'd like to receive this by email, sign up here.

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*Dan Gillmor discusses a newspaper bailout plan
*Mary-Rose Papandrea explains the latest loss for student speech
*Rebecca MacKinnon offers President Obama some suggestions about China
*Chris Soghoian looks at Whitehouse.gov's YouTube privacy problem
*CALI and Berkman launched the Legal Education Commons this week
*Max Weinstein thinks the President's cyber security plan needs an anti-malware element
*Ethan Zuckerman explains why he blogs about Africa
*Digital Natives intern Sarah Zhang tries to figure our what's in a name--or an avatar
*Weekly Global Voices: "Madagascar: 'Unmitigated Disaster'"

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"There’s a debate under way in the newspaper/journalism corner of the blogosphere and Twittersphere, spurred by an op-ed commentary in the New York Times earlier this week. The piece, by Yale’s chief investment officer, David Swensen, and his colleague Michael Schmidt, a Yale financial analyst, starts with a questionable idea — that newspapers should be endowed as nonprofits in order to save them — and goes south from there. The column begins: 'The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right,' Thomas Jefferson wrote in January 1787..."
From Dan Gillmor's blog post, "Endowing Newspapers: What Are We Saving, Anyway?"

"A federal district court in Connecticut has granted qualified immunity to the high school principal and the school district superintendent who punished a student for calling school administrators 'douchebags' on her blog.  Doninger v. Niehoff, No. 3:07-cv-1129 (D. Conn. filed Jan. 15, 2009).  This decision comes as no real surprise in a circuit that lately has proven hostile to student speech rights in the digital age, but it nevertheless demonstrates the need for greater clarity in the law governing this area..."
From Mary-Rose Papandrea's blog post for the Citizen Media Law Project, "Another Victory for the 'Douchebags'"

"(Cross-posted from the Huffington Post) Dear President Obama, Welcome to U.S.-China relations! You didn't even mention China in your inaugural address, but the Chinese censors still took it personally. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's remarks in his confirmation hearing about currency manipulation have got everyone in a tizzy. We're off to a rollicking start! People in China are watching closely -- and starting to debate -- whether your administration's pursuit of America's economic interests will help or hurt their own..."
From Rebecca MacKinnon's blog post, "Dear President Obama: in talking to China, remember its people"

"Just 12 hours after this blog highlighted the privacy problems associated with the White House's use of embedded YouTube videos, the Obama team rushed to deploy a technical fix that significantly protects the privacy of many (but not all) of the site's visitors. While this certainly demonstrates that the 44th president is Web 2.0 savvy, the decision to embed YouTube videos has also enabled the Google-owned video-sharing site to sneakily collect data on the millions of people who visit Whitehouse.gov--even those users who never click the "play" button to actually watch one of the videos. Since its launch three days ago, President Obama's White House Web site has included several embedded YouTube videos..."
From Chris Soghoian's blog post for CNet, "White House acts to limit YouTube cookie tracking"

"The Legal Education Commons launched yesterday with open access to over 700,000 federal court decisions. The LEC is an 'open, searchable collection of resources designed specifically for use in legal education.' It is made possible by a collaboration between the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) and Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. From the press release: 'All teachers of law have materials and notes they use in teaching,” says John Mayer, CALI Executive Director. “Many freely share their materials with colleagues, but there has never been a singular searchable, taggable space to serve that function for the entire legal academy,' he explains, 'until now...'"
From the Creative Commons blog post, "The Legal Education Commons"

"President Obama’s cyber security plan is revealed within the Homeland Security agenda posted on Whitehouse.gov. The plan echoes many of the recommendations made in a report (PDF) by the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency. The elements, all of which are sensible, include: Appointing a national cyber advisor; Investing in R&D for infrastructure security; Working with the private sector to set standards for infrastructure security; Working with industry to develop safeguards against cyber-espionage; Shutting down untraceable payment schemes used to facilitate cybercrime; Providing law enforcement with money and training to improve their cybercrime enforcement efforts; Set standards for securing personal data and disclosing data breaches..."
From Max Weinstein's blog post for StopBadware, "President's cyber security plan misses the (end)point"

"Like Erik Hersman, who tagged me for this meme, I usually duck Internet memes. Generally, I duck because they’re a little silly and I suspect people don’t actually want answers to the questions asked. This meme - 'Why I Blog About Afric' - I’ve ducked because it’s hard. This meme began in Francophone Africa, started by Théophile Kouamouo in Abidjan, and it’s spread first through French-language blogs and now into the Anglophone Afrosphere. Elia Varela Serra has rounded up and translated French responses, as well as a set of English responses, and it’s a fascinating set of responses from people who live on the continent who’d like the rest of the world to better understand their home countries and what they love about their continent..."
From Ethan Zuckerman's blog post, "Web meme two, why I blog about Africa"

"My more sensible fellow interns post here under their real names, whereas my Wordpress username is a funny, nonsensical 'kurquoise.' (Look up, it says 'Posted by kurquoise' in light green letters.) This pseudonym is a holdover from when we were first launching the blog, and out of convenience, it has just stuck around, but it alludes to an interesting point. As the Internet has “grown up” over the past few years, one of the major trends has been a move away from anonymity toward the credibility of real names. That’s not to say anonymous and pseudonymous corners of the web are not still thriving, but simply that there’s a greater movement toward aggregating our various online avatars into one coherent identity. More concretely, what do I mean why this..."
From the Digital Natives Project blog post, "What’s In a Name?: Navigating the Internet with a Real Name"

"After two days of upheaval that resulted in an estimated death toll at 80 nationally, and the looting of dozens of stores, a day of relative calm greeted a stunned nation. Soldiers are now patrolling Antananarivo, and both parties have called for supporters to stand down. The mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina, called for a “ghost town” operation in the capital today, January 29th, urging supporters to stay at home, but attend an organized public demonstration on Saturday, January 31st. President Ravalomanana met with his executive cabinet as well as religious leaders to find a solution to the current instability. Many foreign embassies have issued alerts to their citizens about carefully considering traveling to Madagascar..."
From Lova Rakotomalala's blog post for Global Voices, "Madagascar: 'Unmitigated Disaster'"