Berkman Buzz: Week of August 3, 2009

August 07, 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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*danah boyd: "Teens Don't Tweet, Or Do They?"
*Jonathan Zittrain: "What, you didn't think Apple would ever kill an app you actually wanted?"
*Citizen Media Law Project: "Another One Bites the Dust: Roommates as a Hail Mary for Frivolous Lawsuits"
*Herdict: "Is Twitter Down, Maybe Herdict Knows"
*Internet & Democracy Project: "Young Muslims look to Technology to Fight Extremism"
*Harry Lewis: "Apple Censors the English Dictionary"
*Doc Searls: "Because advertising encourages Alzheimers"
*David Weinberger: "Don't Ask and Don't Tell Facebook"
*Weekly Global Voices: "Korea: Clinton's visit to North Korea"

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"Yesterday, Mashable reported Nielsen's latest Twitter numbers with the headline Stats Confirm It: Teens Don't Tweet. This gained traction on Twitter turning into the trending topic "teens don't tweet" which was primarily kept in play all day yesterday with teens responding to the TT by saying 'I'm a teen' or the equivalent of 'you're all idiots... what am I, mashed potatoes...'"
From danah boyd's blog post, "Teens Don't Tweet, Or Do They?"

"Apple has long been killing apps—sometimes inexplicably, sometimes because they compete with other Apple products (Podcaster), and sometimes because they compete with AT&T’s exclusive deal (Netshare). This week brings another example of killing an app because it competes with AT&T, and the tech world is disgusted, outraged, and furious—even the New York Times noticed. The app is Google Voice..."
From Jonathan Zittrain's blog post, “What, you didn't think Apple would ever kill an app you actually wanter?”

"Yet another lawsuit that probably should never have been brought has been dismissed due to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("Section 230"), despite the court’s earlier indulgence in allowing the plaintiff to amend her complaint and get a second bite at the apple.  The case is Goddard v. Google, Inc., and in his July 30 opinion Judge Jeremy Fogel reconfirmed that Section 230’s protections are broad, while indicating that the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC, 521 F.3d 1157 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc) should be construed narrowly..."
From Lee Baker's blog post for the Citizen Media Law Project, "Another One Bites the Dust: Roommates as a hail mary for Frivolous Lawsuits"

"This morning, a flood of Herdict reports rushed in, telling us that Twitter was inaccessible in the United States.  Of course, Twitter addicts that we are, we already knew, and some of us had already checked the Twitter-specific test site, IsTwitterDown.com, for answers. Although the site provides a quick answer as to whether or not Twitter is down, did you know that Herdict can do the same thing…and more..."
From Jillian York's blog post for Herdict, "Is Twitter Down? Maybe Herdict Knows!"



"There is no shortage of stories about how the Internet enables extremists in the Middle East, so it’s nice to see a more balanced look at how young people in the region are actually using these online tools. This excellent CNN piece by Manav Tanneeru, which is part of Christian Amanpour’s Generation Islam series, looks closely at Esra’a al Shafei of MidEastYouth, and cite her as an example of someone who: 'represents a generation of Muslims who are using technology to express themselves...'"
From Bruce Etling's blog post for the Internet & Democracy Project, "Young Muslims look to Technology to Fight Extremism"

"Hard on the heels of Amazon reaching into the homes of Kindle owners and snatching copies of Orwell’s 1984 off their devices, we have a stunning reminder that Apple’s iPhone is also a tethered device, and nothing goes on it that Mother Apple doesn’t want on it. Application developers have to go through a certification process to get their apps approved for the iPhone, and among the standards applied by the certification team are prohibitions on obscene and pornographic material..."
From Harry Lewis' blog post, "Apple Censors the English Dictionary"

"I dunno why the New York Times appeared on my doorstep this morning, along with our usual Boston Globe (Sox lost, plus other news) — while our Wall Street Journal did not. (Was it a promo? There was no response envelope or anything. And none of the neighbors gets a paper at all, so it wasn’t a stray, I’m pretty sure.) Anyway, while I was paging through the Times over breakfast, I was thinking, 'It’s good, but I’m not missing much here–' when I hit Hot Story to Has-Been: Tracking News via Cyberspace, by Patricia Cohen, on the front page of the Arts section..."
From Doc Searls' blog post, "Because advertising encourages Alzheimers"

"The military is trying to devise policies to govern how our service people use social networking sites, according to a story by Julian Barnes in the LA Times. The article implies the Pentagon accepts that military folks are going to use these sites, and there may even be some good that will come from it, but the military is concerned about security. At the moment, the Marines have banned accessing Facebook, MySpace and Twitter from government computers, to make sure there’s bandwidth for more pressing military needs..."
From David Weinberger's blog post, "Don't Ask and Don't Tell Facebook"

"A surprising news. All of a sudden, Clinton visited North Korea and like 007 he took two female American journalists who were held in North Korea back home. About this sudden news, there is not so much public news regarding it in the Korean media nor in bloggers’ opinions. Here are a few posts..."
From Hyejin Kim's blog post for Global Voices, "Korea: Clinton's Visit to North Korea"