Berkman Buzz: March 8, 2013

Recently, Facebook has been accused of actively censoring the accounts of conservative bloggers. As might be expected, Facebook posters from the opposite end of the social and political spectrum have reported liberal censorship as well. Perhaps the problem isn’t a systematic political bias, but instead overzealous application of censorship defined by Facebook’s community standards. Individual interpretation of proscribed content categories may lead to erring on the side of “protection” of users rather than protection of free speech.

Google recently launched its high-end Chromebook Pixel, and like previous Chromebooks this notebook computer makes a distinctly 21st Century assumption: that users' data, work and play belong mostly online, not on their own computers. Google isn't alone in pushing this notion, but it's the most powerful evangelist for the shift to what tech people call the "cloud" and away from "local" storage.

Call me unconvinced. Deeply unconvinced.

University of Warwick research: Why people recall social media status updates more easily than famous quotatations http://bit.ly/14Ct3Jj
—John Deighton (@HSBmkt)

metaLAB is happy to announce that Zeega has been selected to join the first cohort of startups in Matter, a new San Francisco-based accelerator for mission-driven companies committed to changing media and supporting media entrepreneurs building a more informed, connected, and empowered society. Matter will allow the Zeega development team including metaLAB’s own Jesse Shapins, Kara Oehler and James Burns to work alongside fellow media entrepreneurs tackling problems ranging from building a radically transparent society to the daily news experience of the future. The founding partners are The Knight Foundation, KQED and PRX. Matter is led by Corey Ford, whose background combines years as a filmmaker at Frontline with work at Innovation Endeavours, the early-stage venture fund of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

The Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project continually delivers fascinating, high-quality research products. Their most recent study of teachers and technology surveyed several thousands teachers involved in Advanced Placement classes and the National Writing Project; they call them "leading edge" teachers. For me, the most interesting part of the report digs deeply into issues of technology and equity.

Jose Gomez-Marquez teaches at MIT’s D-Lab, a remarkable lab focused on the problems of the developing world. He’s a recognized and awarded innovator in the field of health innovation and won Technology Review’s Humanitarian award. Gomez-Marquez’s talk focuses on democratizing innovation and lowering barrier to entry. Titled “Little Devices: Legos, Nebulizers, and Construction Sets for Heath”, Gomez-Marquez explains that we need innovation in health because we spend massively on health and see diminishing returns on much of this spending.

4th installment on @digpublib in @libraryjournal: Why We Miss the First Sale Doctrine in Digital Libraries http://j.mp/XvxEO2
—John Palfrey (@jpalfrey)

Twitter was abuzz with Yoruba, one of the three major indigenous languages spoken in Nigeria, on March 1, 2013 as speakers of the language lit up the microblogging site with tweets in Yoruba as part of a campaign to celebrate the language on social media and pressure Twitter to include it in its translation project.