Berkman Buzz, week of December 10
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 10, 2007
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What's going on... take your pick or browse below.
* David Isenberg decries the use of torture for interrogations.
* danah boyd reflects on the scale of the Facebook Beacon controversy.
* Digital Natives: Digital Niche Communities.
* David Weinberger describes the Nobel Peace Prize concert.
* Citizen Media Law Project: Massachusetts Wiretapping Law Strikes Again.
* Weekly Global Voice: Russia: President Dmitry Medvedev?
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The full buzz.
“The CIA now claims it no longer videotapes its torture sessions. If this is true, it piles hypocrisy on top of inhumanity. Here's my thinking. If we take at face value that these CIA agents, or their contractors, willingly suspend their human empathy to inflict humiliation, powerlessness and hopelessness, as well as pain, panic and fear of death, on a prisoner for the utilitarian purpose of extracting information, you'd think they'd use any means to capture whatever information was extracted. I'm giving the torturers the benefit of the doubt here. I am assuming that torture might, occasionally, cause the extraction of information that is actually useful, even though we know that's not often the case.”
David Isenberg, “Another Reason Torture-tape-gate is Abhorrent”
“I've been watching the public outcry over Facebook's Beacon (social ads) program with great interest. For those who managed to miss this, Facebook introduced a new feature called Beacon. Whenever you visit one of their partners' sites, some of your actions were automagically sent to Facebook and published on your News Feed. The list of actions is unknown, although through experimentation folks have learned that they include writing reviews on Yelp, renting movies from Blockbuster, and buying things on certain sites. Some partners were listed in the press release. When a Beacon-worthy action takes place, a pop-up appears in the bottom right, allowing you to opt-out. If you miss it, you auto-opt-in. There was no universal opt-out, although they've now implemented one (privacy – external websites – don't allow any websites). Furthermore, even if you opt out of having that bit blasted to the News Feed, it didn't stop sponsors from sending it to Facebook.”
danah boyd, “Facebook's ‘opt-out’ precedent”
“Prof. Oke’s comment a couple posts back and the coming end of the year reminded me of something I’d much rather forget – college applications. Early college decisions are coming back this Friday, and as a college freshman, the anxiety and the nerves of last year are still fresh on my mind. The stress of college applications naturally spilled over into my online life, so fall of my senior year, I began frequenting the forums at College Confidential. College Confidential bills its forums as the ‘Most popular on the Web!’ The community is largely devoted to undergraduate college admissions, and its boards are populated with threads about college essays, interview tips, and choosing the right college. There are a sizable number of parents and administrators on the site, but the large majority of posters are anxious teens.”
kurquoise, “Digital Niche Communities”
“I went to the Peace Prize concert last night. What a rich experience. Not unmixed, but certainly rich. You should know two facts about me for context: 1: As I have failed to hide, I am a huge Al Gore fan. I wish he were running for president. I wish he had been allowed to take office when we elected him. 2: As far as musical tastes go, I find I’m quite binary. I can admire and respect a musician while being completely unmoved. If I’m moved at all, I’m moved to tears. Weird. In between, there’s hardly anything beyond the occasional toe tap. Also, I’m getting to be a grumpy old man.”
David Weinberger, “The Peace Prize concert”
“Boston Now reports that Peter Lowney, a political activist from Newton, Massachusetts, was convicted last week of violating the Massachusetts wiretapping statute (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 272, § 99) and sentenced to six months probation and fined $500. The criminal case arose out of Lowney's concealed videotaping of a Boston University police sergeant during a political protest in 2006. Apparently Lowney was shooting footage of the protest when police ordered him to stop and then arrested him for continuing to operate the camera while hiding it in his coat. As part of the sentencing, the Brighton District Court ordered Lowney to remove the footage from the Internet.”
Sam Bayard, “Massachusetts Wiretapping Law Strikes Again”
“A year and a half ago, Moscow bloggers had to go all the way to the Zoo to yell ‘Preved, Medved!’ to the bears there. Today, they don't even have to leave their computers – all thanks to President Vladimir Putin's pledge of support to Dmitry Medvedev, first deputy prime minister and the likely 2008 presidential candidate. Medvedev's last name stems from the Russian word for ‘bear’ a – medved – and Yandex Blogs portal (RUS) lists over 1,500 posts in the Russian blogosphere today that greet him irreverently with ‘Preved, Medved!’ (RUS) and over 1,400 more posts that refer to Medvedev in a more reserved manner (RUS), by what appears to be his semi-official title by now – ‘the successor.’”
Veronica Khokhlova, “Russia: President Dmitry Medvedev?”