Berkman Buzz, week of November 12

BERKMAN BUZZ: A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
Week of November 12, 2007

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What's going on... take your pick or browse below.

*Dan Gillmor on the (potential) future of political debates.
*danah boyd highlights her recently completed work.
*Wendy Seltzer makes an appeal on behalf of higher ed networks.
*Rebecca MacKinnon on Yahoo! settling case with Chinese journalist's family.
*Urs Gasser announces interoperability report.
*John Palfrey thanks MacArthur for their gift.
*Citizen Media Law Podcast - Ciolli Dropped from AutoAdmit Suit; Libel Claim Against Perez Hilton Dismissed.
*Weekly Global Voice - Hiring: Global Voices seeks an Executive Director.

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The full buzz.

"On Thursday night, most of the Democratic presidential candidates will travel to Las Vegas for the latest in this election cycle's 'debates.' The quotes around that word are deliberate, because political debates are stuck in a world of television sound bites, after-the-fact spin, and almost blatant contempt for voters."
Dan Gillmor, "Using Tech to Improve Political Debates"

"It gives me unquantifiable amounts of joy to announce that the JCMC special theme issue on "Social Network Sites" is now completely birthed. It was a long and intense labor, but all eight newborn articles are doing just fine and the new mommies are as proud as could be. So please, join us in our celebration by heading on over to the Journal for Computer-Mediated Communication and snuggling up to an article or two. The more you love them, the more they'll prosper!"
danah boyd, "It's Live! New JCMC on Social Network Sites"

"Entertainment lobbyists have dumped a nasty trojan horse into the Higher Education bill scheduled for markup Wednesday in the House Committee on Education and Labor. On page 412 of the massive 747-page 'College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007' is a requirement that educational institutions spend their scarce resources to: 'develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.'"
Wendy Seltzer, "Stop Congress From Breaking Higher Education Networks"

"I've been so busy talking to journalists about this in between helping my students cover Hong Kong's district council elections, I haven't had a chance to write about the news that Yahoo! has settled the lawsuit against them by relatives of Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning, two of the dissidents sitting in jail thanks in part to Yahoo!'s cooperation with the Chinese authorities. I won't repeat all the facts that everybody is reporting. Just a few quick thoughts."
Rebecca MacKinnon, "Yahoo! settles with victims' families: the big picture"

"John Palfrey and I released today in Washington D.C. a White Paper and three case studies on ICT Interoperability and eInnovation (project homepage here.) The papers are the result of a joint project between Harvard's Berkman Center and the Research Center for Information Law at St. Gallen, sponsored by Microsoft. Our research focused on three case studies in which the issues of interoperability and innovation are uppermost: digital rights management in online and offline music distribution models; various models of digital identity systems (how computing systems identify users to provide the correct level of access and security); and web services (in which computer applications or programs connect with each other over the Internet to provide specific services to customers)."
Urs Gasser, "Study Released: ICT Interoperability and eInnovation"

"This year, the Berkman Center is celebrating its tenth anniversary. We’re spending the year, in part, reflecting on what we’ve learned in our first decade, where things stand now in our field, and where we ought to focus for our second decade. We’ll have a series of special events throughout the year, as well as a gala event from May 14 - 16, 2008. We hope very much to see lots of friends, old and new, over the course of the year."
John Palfrey, "MacArthur Award, Kicking Off Berkman at 10"

"This week, David Ardia talks about the lawsuit against AutoAdmit and Colin Rhinesmith speaks with Sam Bayard about a recent decision involving the celebrity blogger Perez Hilton."
CMLP, "Ciolli Dropped from AutoAdmit Suit; Libel Claim Against Perez Hilton Dismissed"

"The new board of directors of Global Voices met this week and decided it was time for an exciting step: hiring an executive director for Global Voices. Believe it or not, Global Voices has operated for almost three years with no one formally at the helm of the organization, and with no full-time employees. As our work and scale expands, we've reached a point where we need someone to coordinate and head up our fundraising, management and public relations efforts."
Ethan Zuckerman, "Hiring: Global Voices seeks an Executive Director"