Berkman Buzz, week of December 3
BERKMAN BUZZ: A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
Week of December 3, 2007
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What's going on... take your pick or browse below.
*Rebecca MacKinnon reports on the status of China’s “nailhouse blogger.”
*danah boyd wonders who clicks on Internet ads.
*StopBadware.org reports on the Facebook Beacon dilemma.
*Urs Gasser discusses the crafting of an upcoming book.
*Citizen Media Law Project: Savage v. Council on American-Islamic Relations: A Breathtaking Misunderstanding of Copyright Law.
*Weekly Global Voice: The hazards of journalism in West Africa.
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The full buzz.
“Zola Shenyang, aka ‘Zola,’ reports that he is home safe in Changsha after being detained in Shenyang, interrogated, made to write detailed reports on everybody he met and everything since arriving in Shenyang to blog about the Yilishen "ant-farmer" protests, had his ID and money confiscated, punched around the head and neck a little when he objected to being forced to return by air (and pay for his own ticket) rather than travel by train, and then escorted by two state security police on the plane back to Changsha. He has been told not to go far, that they hope he will focus on his vegetable-selling business, and to report to the local police if he needs to go anywhere.”
Rebecca MacKinnon, “‘Nailhouse blogger’ detained & interrogated, web crackdown on ‘ant farmer’ story continues”
“Advertising is the bread and butter of the web, yet most of my friends claim that they never click on ads, typically using a peacock tone that signals their pride in being ad-averse. The geekier amongst them go out of their way to run Mozilla scripts to scrape ads away, bemoaning the presence of consumer culture. Yet, companies increasingly rely on ad revenue to turn a profit and, while clicking on ads may be declining, it certainly hasn't gone away. This raises a critical question: Who are the people that click on ads? A few years back, I asked this question to someone who worked in the world of web ads and I received a snarky (and condescending) answer: middle America.”
danah boyd, “Who clicks on ads? And what might this mean?”
“Social networking site Facebook has been on the defensive lately for a variety of poor privacy and dislosure related decisions about its Beacon application. Beacon, which is turned on by default for Facebook users, allows users to update their Facebook news feed with information about recent purchases and other activities on third party web sites, such as Blockbuster.com, Overstock.com, and Epicurious.com.”
StopBadware.org, “Facebook responds to privacy concerns, but some still remain”
“John Palfrey and I are getting tremendously helpful feedback on the draft v.0.9 of our forthcoming book Born Digital (Basic Books, German translation with Hanser) from a number of great students at Harvard and St. Gallen Law School, respectively. Last week, John and I had an inspiring conversation about the current draft with our first readers on this side of the Atlantic: a small, but great and diverse group of law students here at www.unisg.ch. The students, coming from Switzerland, Germany, France, Singapore, and the U.S., were kind enough to share their feedback with us based on reaction papers they’ve drafted in response to assigned book chapters. Today, the second session took place.”
Urs Gasser, “Discussing ‘Born Digital’ with European Students”
“Conservative talk show host Michael Savage sued the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in federal district court in California on Monday for copyright infringement. Savage posted a copy of the complaint on his website. He claims that CAIR violated his copyrights in the October 29, 2007 program of the ‘Michael Savage Show’ by excerpting a four-plus minute portion of the show and posting it on CAIR's website. The excerpt was (and remains) attached as an audio file to an article on the website, entitled ‘National Radio Host Goes On Anti-Muslim Tirade.’ I don't want to go into details about the Savage excerpt, but I have listened to it, and one can only describe it as extremely hateful material aimed at Muslims, the Quran, and the Islamic faith in general.”
Sam Bayard, “Savage v. Council on American-Islamic Relations: A Breathtaking Misunderstanding of Copyright Law”
“In a country whose name means ‘the land of upright people,’ accounts of corruption will always find their way into Burkina Faso’s media. In this country with proud history of fighting kleptocracy, however, something now seems terribly wrong. To the average Burkinabé, corruption at all levels of government is a problem – one that's growing worse. Yet the majority of Burkinabé media pointedly look the other direction. You may blame this on the fact that the nation’s largest newspaper, major radio network and local television service are all state controlled, and known for their mostly lackluster news coverage. For the country’s independent dailies, the government enjoys employing subtle forms of intimidation to ensure readers’ attention is directed elsewhere.”
John Liebhardt, “The hazards of journalism in West Africa”