Berkman Buzz: Week of July 12, 2010

BERKMAN BUZZ: A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations
If you would like to receive the Buzz weekly via email, please sign up here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

What's being discussed...take your pick or browse below.

* Doc Searls wonders whether biz is all it is.
* Ethan Zuckerman's "a wider world, a wider web" TED talk
* Donnie Dong spots the difference anew on Google.cn.
* Herdict updates us on Australia's Internet filtering plans.
* Wendy Seltzer comments on "Bilski and the Value of Experimentation."
* Radio Berkman 158: "Thinking About Thinking About the Net"
* danah boyd shares her concerns and questions about Facebook's UK "panic button."
* OpenNet Initiative on Pakistan and Facebook, encore.
* Harry Lewis reads the speech control news.
* CMLP thinks of the children, and constitutionally protected speech.
* Weekly Global Voices: "Uganda: Bloggers react to bomb blasts"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The full buzz.

"The framing here is business. That is, the Times is wringing its hands about Google’s influence over businesses on the Web. That’s fine, but is business all the Web is about? Is the “Internet economy” limited to businesses with Web sites? Is it limited to the Web at all? What about email and all the other stuff supported by Internet protocols? Have the Internet and the Web, both creations of non-commercial entities and purposes, turned entirely into commercial places? The Times seems to think so."
From Doc Searls' blog post The Mall Wide Web

"It’s data like this that’s leading me to conclude that the internet isn’t flattening the world the way Nicholas Negroponte thought it would. Instead, my fear is that it’s making us “imaginary cosmopolitans”. We think we’re getting a broad view of the world because it’s possible that our television, newspapers and internet could be giving us a vastly wider picture than was available for our parents or grandparents. When we look at what’s actually happening, our worldview might actually be narrowing. Having this wider picture of the world is critical for global survival."
From Ethan Zuckerman's blog post A wider world, a wider web: my TEDGlobal 2010 talk

(Video of Ethan's talk can be found at http://blog.ted.com/2010/07/listening_to_gl.php plus he blogged nearly everyone else's talk at TEDGlobal.)

"Google’s ICP license renewed. See the captured today’s Google.cn web page below..., and compare it with the page in last week... Exactly as what I predicted few days ago, Google is trying to make Google.cn being a non-search engine website. It now places “Music”, “Translation” and “Shopping” at the web page. These are what Google wishes to keep on running in China. While the search engine service of Google.cn is replaced by a link to google.com.hk. Legally speaking, Google.cn is not providing search engine service currently. It is merely a link to another website. Just like the links added in any of our own web posts."
From Donnie Dong's blog post Google’s License renewed, and ISP Liability Released

"Just as Internet filtration proponents in Australia felt comforted as the the new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, put her support behind Stephen Conroy’s proposed filtration plan, Internet freedom activists have taken temporary and cautious breath of relief as some of the plans have unraveled…….a little. The government recently decided to delay the proposed ISP content for at least 12 months for the purpose of reviewing the RC content system and list."
From Alex Fayette's blog post for Herdict, Update: Australia

"The Supreme Court's long-awaited decision in Bilski v. Kappos brought closure to this particular patent prosecution, but not much clarity to the questions surrounding business method patents. The Court upheld the Federal Circuit's conclusion that the claimed “procedure for instructing buyers and sellers how to protect against the risk of price fluctuations in a discrete section of the economy” was unpatentable, but threw out the “machine-or-transformation” test the lower court had used. In its place, the Court's majority gave us a set of “clues” which future applicants, Sherlock Holmes-like, must use to discern the boundaries separating patentable processes from unpatentable "abstract ideas.""
From Wendy Seltzer's blog post Bilski and the Value of Experimentation

This week on Radio Berkman: David Weinberger and Tim Hwang trawl through some schools of thought about the Net...
Radio Berkman 158: Thinking About Thinking About the Net
More episodes of Radio Berkman

"I think that there’s a mistaken belief that Facebook doesn’t care about child safety. This was the message that many propagated when Facebook balked at implementing the “Panic Button” in the UK. As many news articles recently reported, Facebook finally conceded last week to implementing it after enormous pressure by safety advocates. Their slowness in agreeing to do so was attributed to their lack of caring, but this is simply not true. There are actually very good reasons to be wary of the “Panic Button.” My fear is that the lack of critical conversation about the “Panic Button” will result in people thinking it’s a panacea, rather than acknowledging its limitations and failings. Furthermore, touting it as a solution obscures the actual dangers that youth face."
From danah boyd's blog post Facebook’s Panic Button: Who’s panicking? And who’s listening?

"The International Herald Tribune reported Saturday that Attorney Muhammad Azhar Siddique is petitioning the Lahore High Court of Pakistan to re-open a First Information Report (FIR) registered against Facebook executives in May. The report was sealed and investigations ended after Facebook removed the “Draw Mohammad Day” group that ignited controversy within the global Muslim community and led some religious leaders to call for its removal."
From Ellery Biddle's blog post for ONI, MZ, call your office: Facebook’s Zuckerberg may face criminal charges in Pakistan

"Also, a couple of notes on anonymity. I was reading Richard Clarke’s book Cyber War, which makes a compelling case for a more controlled version of the Internet by riding roughshod over civil liberties concerns. Having described the Internet as basically a hippie invention (“the Internet as we know it today is deeply imbued with the sensibilities and campus politics of [the 1960s]“), Clarke scornfully distances himself from any respect for anonymous speech, or reading."
From Harry Lewis' blog post Speech control news from all over

"It is a good thing to want to protect children from the vulgarity of the world. Accordingly, states have adopted prohibitions on exhibiting or selling harmful material to minors. These laws make sense, in that we usually don’t want sex shops selling pornography to kids. But occasionally the legislature goes a bit insane and decides that, in order to fully protect the children, we need to criminalize or block off whole sections of the Internet. Massachusetts recently changed its “harmful to minors” law...to include information hosted on the Internet..."
From Andrew Moshirnia's blog post for CMLP, Won't Someone Think of the Children! Massachusetts' Unconstitutional Attempt to Break the Internet

(Harry Lewis also posted a strongly worded account of changes to the Mass. "harmful to minors" law.)

"Soccer fans gathered in bars and restaurants around the globe to watch the final game of the World Cup last night. In Uganda, these celebrations were interrupted when bombs exploded at two popular nightlife spots in Kampala, the country's capital. Ugandan media are reporting over 40 deaths so far, with dozens more injured in the explosions. Ugandan police have suggested that Somali militant group al-Shabab was behind the attacks. One of the group's commanders recently called for attacks against Uganda, which contributes troops to the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia. The group has praised the attacks but has not claimed responsibility."
From Rebekah Heacock's blog post for Global Voices, Uganda: Bloggers react to bomb blasts

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The weekly Berkman Buzz is selected from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects: http://cyber.harvard.edu/planet/current/

Suggestions and feedback about the Buzz are always welcome and can be emailed to syoung@cyber.harvard.edu