Berkman Buzz: March 22, 2013

Is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act the "worst law in technology", as Columbia Law School's Tim Wu calls the statute? I think there are worse laws for the technology industry and its customers, but the CFAA is more than bad enough – a vague, outdated and Draconian law, abused by the government in several high-profile cases – to have spurred calls for repeal.

There has been a rash of irresponsible decisions by parents and national media in forcing national exposure on children who are clearly below an age for any reasonable definition of consent. An oft-stated argument is that the exposure was about “something with which there is nothing wrong” and therefore exposure is okay.

That is wrong and a dangerous view of privacy. I think every adult can ponder this for 60 seconds and come up with parts of their life with which there is “nothing wrong” but they would not want subjected to national exposure.

Further, that view gravely misunderstands privacy and the right to consent. Privacy is not something to be granted only if you prove you deserve it; on the contrary, there should be a strong reason to violate it.

Wanna try the new Zeega? Sign up to be a beta tester now! http://bit.ly/162SvKM
—Zeega (@zeega)

As high school and college students transition into a knowledge economy they face both advantages and challenges with how they find information and engage with co-workers as teammates.

As a recent study of US employers and recent college graduates discovered, some young hires are pretty good at finding out information online and through social networks, but experience significant difficulty with traditional methods of finding answers — going through bound reports, picking up the phone, or researching with groups.

Every few years, This American Life puts forward a piece of radio reporting that raises the bar for journalism as a whole. A few years back, “The Giant Pool of Money” not only explained the mortgage crisis better than anyone else had, it sparked a helpful discussion in the journalism scholarship community about “explainers” and the important journalistic work done in making a story sufficiently comprehensible that it broadens the audience for future stories on the topic.

I think the two part episode This American Life recently released on Harper High School in the south side of Chicago is some of the best work they’ve ever done. Trying to understand the epidemic of gun violence in Chicago and its implications for children growing up in this violent environment, TAL placed three reporters in Harper for five months.

The good news is that digital tools are letting kids hack their learning, communities, and world in all kinds of awesome new ways. The bad news is that these opportunities are not evenly distributed, and they may be accelerating inequalities between more and less affluent youth.

Expanding opportunity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for reducing inequality. This is the heart of the argument I made in my Ignite talk at the Digital Media and Learning conference in Chicago this past weekend.

"Anyone who thinks that women won't think twice about speaking up forcefully about this stuff is kidding themselves." http://t.co/bVAKo2RzjM
—Zeynep Tufekci (@techsoc)

A Brazilian court has ruled that satirical blog Falha São Paulo must remain shut down because its name is too similar to the newspaper it mocks, a move that critics decry as a dangerous legal precedent for freedom of expression.