Berkman Buzz: Week of April 6, 2009

April 10, 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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*Herdict: "Arabic Herdict and Internet Explorer Toolbar, Oh My!"
*Doc Searls: "Saving the Globe From its World of Hurt"
*Gender and Technology: "Gender and Blogging in the Arab World"
*Citizen Media Law Project: "New Hampshire Court Tramples on Constitution, Reporter's Privilege, Section 230, What Have You"
*Internet & Democracy: "Moldovan Youth Organize Protests With Twitter"
*Dan Gillmor: "Location, Location"
*Aaron Shaw: "Google and Market Failure: Think Wal-Mart, Not Microsoft"
*Weekly Global Voices: "Peru: Ex-President Fujimori Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison"

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"First you could Herdict. But for our Arabic-speaking users, Herdict just got a whole lot easier! Now you can Herdict in Arabic at Herdict Web - Arabic! ONI data shows heavy filtering in many countries across the Middle East and North Africa; from Morocco to Saudi Arabia, countries in the region block sites for political reasons, social reasons, or both. With Herdict Web - Arabic native speakers can make reports, which are then integrated with the English user interface..."
From the Herdict blog post, "Arabic Herdict and Internet Explorer Toolbar, Oh My!"

"One of the geeks here at the Berkman Center walked into a room recently and started poking his index finger down on a newspaper that was laying on the table, as if expecting it to do something electronic. “This isn’t working,” he said. So true, in so many ways. Take for example the Boston Globe, New England’s landmark newspaper, and one to which we have subscribed since we got here in 2007. Like nearly all newspapers, the Globe is in Big Trouble. Here’s the opening paragraph from today’s bad news story..."
From Doc Searls' blog post, "Saving the Globe From its World of Hurt"

"The Arab blogosphere (encompassing blogs written in Arabic, English, and French, as well as a few stray languages) is a complex one. Whether from Morocco or Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Syria, almost every blogger in the Middle East and North Africa is up against censorship, cultural concerns, and the ever-present concern of surveillance. Nonetheless, blogging has become a solitary platform for free speech in much of the Arab world. Because many bloggers in the region choose to remain relative anonymous (or pseudonymous), there is often little differentiation between male and female, particularly in blogospheres where political or human rights issues are avoided for risk of legal action..."
From Jillian C. York's blog post for Berkman's Gender and Technology group, "Gender and Blogging in the Arab World"

"A reader recently tipped us off to a troubling ruling from a trial court in New Hampshire: The Mortgage Specialists, Inc. v. Implode-Explode Heavy Industries, Inc., No. 08-E-0572 (N.H. Super. Ct. Mar. 11, 2009).  In the decision, Justice McHugh of the Superior Court for Rockingham County ordered the publishers of the popular mortgage watchdog website, The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter ('ML-Implode'), to turn over the identity of an anonymous source who provided ML-Implode with a copy of a financial document prepared by The Mortgage Specialists, Inc. for submission to the New Hampshire Banking Department.  The court also ordered ML-Implode to reveal the identity of an anonymous commenter who allegedly posted defamatory statements about the company and enjoined the website from re-posting the financial document or the allegedly defamatory comments..."
From Sam Bayard's blog post for the Citizen Media Law Project, "New Hampshire Court Tramples on Constitution, Reporter's Privilege, Section 230, What Have You"

"NetEffect has some preliminary thoughts on the role of Twitter in the on-going Moldovan youth protests. I think Morozov’s right to see them as a tech protest movement a la the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine (for full background, read Berkman’s study here). Both of these social movements were stoked, organized and facilitated by technology. Twitter has not only helped rally protesters, though, it has also given us — as during the Mumbai bombings or the war in Gaza — a glimpse of reality on the ground. Visceral, real micro-news before the MSM or anyone else can write up a narrative of what’s happening. If you want to follow the action, start reading this tweet aggregator or search for tweets with the hashtag #pman..."
From the Internet & Democracy Project blog post, "Moldovan Youth Organize Protests With Twitter"

"Combining mobility, time and location is becoming one of the most valuable techniques of media creation. Last week, some students and I did a small experiment that demonstrates how easy this is to do, and suggests all kinds of possibilities for journalistic follow-ups. This Flickr map has more than 120 photos, taken by me and some Arizona State University journalism students, at last week’s Phoenix “First Friday Art Walk” — a monthly, self-guided tour of a downtown-Phoenix district that contains a number of galleries and craft-oriented shops..."
From Dan Gillmor's blog post, "Location, Location"

"As in just about all the coverage I’ve seen of the Google Books deal with the Author’s Guild, Friday’s NY Times story raises the familiar specter of Google-as-monopolist. This continues the longer-term trend of tarring the Mountain View, CA based firm with the same brush as it’s older, bigger, and more widely-distrusted rival from Redmond, WA. I’d like to point out a problem with this storyline that stems from the nature of the particular terms of the agreement..."
From Aaron Shaw's blog post, "Google and Market Failure: Think Wal-Mart, Not Microsoft"

"Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori received his sentence: 25 years in prison convicted for crimes against humanity during his 1990-2000 administration. He was found to be guilty in his role of 25 murders during the operations against the Shining Path terrorist insurgency that gripped the nation. The blog Fujimori on Trial has been following all of the developments over the course of the trial. With the news of the ruling, the mainstream media has placed the news on the front page, and Espacio Propio [es] collects the covers on many of the country's newspaper. Of course, many Peruvian bloggers write their reactions..."
From Juan Arellano's blog post for Global Voices, "Madagascar: Security forces harass bloggers and twitterers"