The library-shaped hole in the Internet. Libraries need to be sharing more of their unique and valuable information if they want to stay relevant in an increasingly digital world, according to Berkman senior researcher David Weinberger. But, as he writes in The Boston Globe, they need help.
Privacy before openness. When Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan announced their pregnancy and shared the news that they'd previously had three miscarriages, this was, "actually first a celebration of privacy and control, and only then of being open," says Berkman faculty associate Zeynep Tufekci in this Medium essay.
The WTF economy. Uber, Airbnb, Kickstarter... "the Internet has morphed from being the communal, we the people, cybertopia of the early 90s, to one which has become dominated by what can be understood as privately owned public spaces," argues former Berkman affiliate Leora Kornfeld.
Moral crumple zones in the age of self-driving cars. "Just as the crumple zone in a car is designed to absorb the force of impact in a crash, the human in an autonomous system may become simply a component—accidentally or intentionally—that is intended to bear the brunt of the moral and legal penalties when the overall system fails," explains former Berkman researcher Tim Hwang in Quartz.
Coding for all. Freedom to express yourself is critical to learning how to communicate with others and productively contribute to conversation. In this Medium post, Berkman fellow Paulina Haduongconsiders different ways for online youth-oriented platform designs to support and facilitate positive and constructive youth conversation.
WATCH: "Behind the Trees" animation by: Avi Ofer http://www.aviofer.com/ assistant animators: Santi Amézqueta Porteros & Héctor Zafra Matos music written & recorded by (Berkman affiliate) Amanda Palmer
With 316 million users posting 500 million tweets a day, someone is bound to write an unoriginal tweet now and then. But now Twitter is deleting plagiarized wisecracks on copyright grounds. We talk to Andy Sellars of the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic about whether you can actually copyright a tweet.
IN OUR ORBIT
Our friends at Creative Commons are raising funds to write "a book that shows how sharing can be good for business." So far they have more than 1,000 backers, but with 9 days left, there's still a ways to go. Learn more about the plan.
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