Assigned Readings

This page contains the readings for the entire class. Please keep in mind that readings will be updated over the course of the semester, so check back frequently to make sure you aren't missing anything!

January 29 - Politics and Technology of Control: Introduction

Readings/Watchings

• Ethan Zuckerman, History of the Internet (approx. 6 minutes, watch all)

• Jonathan Zittrain, How the Internet Works (approx. 4 mins., watch all)

• John Perry Barlow, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

• Jack Goldsmith & Tim Wu, Digital Borders (Legal Affairs)

• Eszter Hargittai, The Digital Divide and What to Do About It (New Economy Handbook) (focus on Sections I-III)

• Hargittai’s data is from 2003. For more recent data, see Pew Internet & American Life Project, Digital Differences 2012 (read intro, skim the sections).

• Rebecca MacKinnon, Let’s Take Back the Internet! (TED.com) (approx. 15 mins., watch all)

Optional Readings

• Chris Locke, Doc Searls & David Weinberger, Cluetrain Manifesto (just the manifesto)

• Eric Goldman, The Third Wave of Internet Exceptionalism

• Tim Wu, Is Internet Exceptionalism Dead?

February 5 - Paradigms for Studying the Internet

Readings

• Lawrence Lessig, Code 2.0 (Chapter 7 - focus on "A Dot's Life")

• Nate Anderson, Book Review: Jonathan Zittrain's "The Future of the Internet And How to Stop It" (from Ars Technica)

• Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, (Chapters 1 and 4 only)

• Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks (pp. 379-396 only; stop at "The Physical Layer")

• danah boyd, White Flight in Networked Publics? How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook (read 1-11, skim 12-18, read 19-end)

Optional Readings

• Ethan Zuckerman & Andrew McLaughlin, Introduction to Internet Architecture and Institutions

• Orin Kerr, The Problem of Perspective in Internet Law (Focus on sections I and II)

February 12 - A Series of Tubes: Infrastructure, Broadband, and Baseline Content Control

Readings

• Yochai Benkler, Next Generation Connectivity (executive summary and introduction)

• Susan Crawford, Wired, We Can’t All Be Google’s Kansas: A Plan for Winning the Bandwidth Race (Wired)

• Adam Thierer, More Confusion about Internet “Freedom” (Tech Liberation)

• Wikipedia, Net Neutrality

Optional Readings

• Sam Biddle, How to Destroy the Internet (Gizmodo)

• Dawn Nunziato, Virtual Freedom (Chs. 1 & 7) (pending)

• Ed Felten, Taking Ted Stevens Seriously

February 19 - Whose Values? International Issues with Internet Regulation

Readings

• The Economist, The Future of the Internet: A Virtual Counter-Revolution

• Hal Roberts et al., The Evolving Landscape of Internet Control

• Biz Stone and Alex Macgillivary, The Tweets Must Flow and The Tweets Still Must Flow

• Rachel Whetstone, Free Expression and Controversial Content on the Web

• Eliza Krigman, Next Battle over Net Ramps Up Worldwide (Politico)

• Case Study: The Innocence of Muslims

• Wikipedia, The Innocence of Muslims

• Jillian York, Should Google Censor an Anti-Islam Video?

• Ryan Budish, Little “i” Internet: The “Innocence of Muslims” Video’s Impact on Free Speech

• Andy Sellars, The Structural Weakness of Internet Speech

Optional Readings

• Anne-Marie Slaughter, Adapting U.S. Policy in a Changing International System

• Jonathan Zittrain and John Palfrey, Reluctant Gatekeepers: Corporate Ethics on a Filtered Internet (from Access Denied)

• Nate Anderson, Explainer: How Can the US Seize a “Hong Kong site” like Megaupload?

February 26 - Regulating Speech Online

Readings

• Citizen Media Law Project Legal Guide: Defamation

• Wikipedia, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

• David Ardia, Free Speech Savior or Shield for Scoundrels: An Empirical Study of Intermediary Immunity Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (Read all of Section I, Parts C&D of Section II, and Conclusion)

• John Palfrey & Adam Thierer, "Dialogue: The Future of Online Obscenity and Social Networks" (Ars Technica)

• Case Study: The SPEECH Act

• Wikipedia, Funding Evil (focus on the “Libel Controversy” section)

• 111th U.S. Congress, H.R. 2765, “Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act” (“SPEECH Act”)

Optional Readings

• Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844 (1997)

Links

Links from Adobe Connect Session

US Constitution: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html

State constitutions: http://www.constitution.org/cons/usstcons.htm

US regulations are in the Code of Federal Regulations: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collectionCfr.action?collectionCode=CFR

Map of the circuit courts and their jurisdictions: http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/images/CircuitMap.pdf

The Supreme Court has been taking fewer and fewer cases: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/us/29bar.html?_r=0

The International Shoe test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Shoe_v._Washington

A very influential case addressing websites is a district court case from Pittsburgh called Zippo Manufacturing v. Zippo Dot Com, Inc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zippo_Manufacturing_Co._v._Zippo_Dot_Com,_Inc

A more recent case of "Libel Tourism" - this time concerning parties from Ethiopia: http://blog.indexoncensorship.org/2013/02/25/london-libel-ruling-against-ethiopian-dissident-shows-urgent-need-for-reform/

Shaari v. Harvard: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/427/427mass129.html

This org has done a lot to make sure that online sites have to remove child porn: http://www.missingkids.com/home

The NPR talk show On Point with Tom Ashbrook had a segment on Cyberbullying and Sexual Shaming: http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/01/28/cyberbullying

March 5 - Copyright Part 1: Guiding Principles and Online Application

Assignments

The second half of assignment 2 (commenting on prospectuses) is due before class today. Information on the assignment can be found here.

Readings/Watchings

• Wikipedia, Copyright Clause

• U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 1: Copyright Basics (read only Who Can Claim Copyright?, What Works Are Protected?, What is Not Protected by Copyright?, How to Secure a Copyright, and How Long Copyright Protection Endures)

• 17 U.S.C. § 107 - Limitations on Exclusive Rights: Fair Use

• Lawrence Lessig, It is About Time: Getting Our Values around Copyright (watch first 6 minutes)

• James Grimmelmann, Why Johnny Can’t Stream: How Video Copyright Went Insane

• Terry Hart, There is No Magic Bullet

• Lawrence Lessig, Remix: Making Art and Culture Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (Introduction only)

• Creative Commons, A Shared Culture (video, watch all) and Spectrum of Rights

Optional Readings

• Jessica Litman, The Exclusive Right to Read (introduction and Sections I and II only)
• Julian Sanchez, Ars Technica, 750,000 Lost Jobs? The Dodgy Digits Behind the War on Piracy

March 12 - Copyright Part 2: Enforcement and Balances

Readings/Watchings

• Digital Media Law Project, Claims Based on User Content and Protecting Yourself Against Copyright Claims Based on User Content

• Electronic Frontier Foundation, Takedown Hall of Shame (peruse)

• Chilling Effects, About and peruse the weather reports.

• Matthew Ingram, Paid Content, How Google did the right thing with the NASCAR crash video, and why it matters

• Erin McKeown, A Perspective On the Complexities of Copyright and Creativity from a Victim of Infringement

Case Study: SOPA/PIPA

• Jonathan Zittrain, Kendra Albert, and Alicia Solow-Niederman, A Close Look at SOPA
• Ethan Zuckerman and Joi Ito, MIT Media Lab Opposes SOPA, PIPA

Case Study: ISP "Six Strikes"

• Brooke Gladstone, On The Media, Interview with Jill Lesser of Center for Copyright Information
• Jonathan Bailey, Plagiarism Today, The 6 Likely Impact of Six Strikes

Optional Readings

• Andy Sellars, Seized Sites: The In Rem Forfeiture of Copyright-Infringing Domain Names

• Wendy Seltzer, Super Bust: Due Process and Domain Name Seizure

March 26 - Collective Action, Politics, and Protests

Assignments

As a reminder, Assignment 3 is due before class today. You can submit that assignment here.

Readings/Watchings

• Yochai Benkler, SOPA/PIPA: A Case Study in Networked Discourse and Activism (approx. 16 mins., watch all)

• Gilad Lotan, KONY2012: See How Invisible Networks Helped a Campaign Capture the World’s Attention

• Zeynep Tufekci, #Kony2012, Understanding Networked Symbolic Action & Why Slacktivism is Conceptually Misleading

• Ari Melber, New Study: Liberals More Open Than Conservatives Online

• Ethan Zuckerman, The Tweetbomb and the Ethics of Attention

Optional Readings

• Aaron Swartz, How We Stopped SOPA

• Yochai Benkler and Aaron Shaw, A Tale of Two Blogospheres: Discursive Practices on the Left and Right

• Jillian York, Policing Content in the Quasi-Public Sphere (focus on the Introduction, and “Social Media: Privacy Companies, Public Responsibilities”)

April 2 - Peer Production: Development from the Edges and from the Crowd

Readings

• Yochai Benkler, News, Information and the Wealth of Networks (video, watch from 8:32 to 26:07)

• if you’re not familiar, you may want to spend a little time looking at Wikipedia’s entry on Seti@home.

• James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds (read excerpt)

• Ethan Zuckerman, Review of Cass Sunstein’s “Infotopia”

• John Tang et al, Reflecting on the DARPA Red Balloon Challenge (Communications of the ACM)

• Jonathan Zittrain, Minds for Sale (video, watch all)

Optional Readings

• Wikipedia, Reliability of Wikipedia

• Eric Von Hippel, Democratizing Innovation (Chapter 1, focus on pages 1-3 and 13-15, skim rest)

April 9 - Hacking, Hackers, and Hacktivism

Readings

• Gabriella Coleman, Phreaks, Hackers, and Trolls: The Politics of Transgression and Spectacle (from The Social Media Reader)

• Wikipedia, Operation Payback

• Molly Sauter, Activist DDOS Campaigns: When Similes and Metaphors Fail (video, watch from to 1:56 to 21:44)

• Sauter uses the term "DDoS" throughout. This is an abbreviation for "distributed denial of service," a specific form of attack to a web server described in more detail here.

• United States Department of Justice, Prosecuting Computer Crimes (read pages 1-11: Introduction to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Key Definitions)

• Wikipedia, Operation Sundevil

• James Ball, Secrecy Surrounding “Zero-Day Exploits” Industry Spurs Calls for Government Oversight

Optional Readings

• Intelligence Squared Debate: "The Cyberwar Threat Has Been Grossly Exaggerated" (an Oxford-style debate with Marc Rotenberg, Bruce Schneier, Mike McConnell, and Jonathan Zittrain; watch the video of the debate)

• TorrentFreak, Pirate Parties Use Influence to Halt Anonymous’ Operation Payback

• Benjamen Walker, Doing it for the LULZ (from Too Much Information) (11:00 to 22:45 only, language at times is NSFW)

• Christopher Soghoian, The Growing Trade in Software Security Exploits

• Nicole Perlroth, Hackers in China Attacked The Times for Last 4 Months (New York Times)

April 16 - Informing the Public in the Internet Age

Readings

• Persephone Miel and Rob Faris, News and Information as Digital Media Come of Age (read executive summary)

• RonNell Anderson Jones, Litigation, Legislation, and Democracy in a Post-Newspaper America (Section I only, remaining optional)

• Federal Communications Commission, Information Needs of Communities (read executive summary, skim overview)

• Banyan Project, Introduction and Overview

• Chris Faraone, MuckRock City (Boston Phoenix)

• Adrienne LaFrance, From Cold Calls to Community Building, ProPublica Tries to Make Crowdsourcing More Meaningful (Nieman Journalism Lab)

• Brendan Nyhan, Biases Abound (video, watch all)

Optional Readings

• Jonathan Zittrain, 2009 Richard S. Salant Lecture on Freedom of the Press (the lecture starts at 19:45)

April 23 - Privacy

Readings

• Daniel Solove, Understanding Privacy (Chapter 1)

• Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It (Chapter 9)

• Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, and Harry Lewis, Blown to Bits (Chapter 2) (focus on pages 36-42: “Why We Lost Our Privacy, Or Gave it All Away”)

• danah boyd, Why Parents Help Children Violate Facebook’s 13+ Rule

• Lawrence Lessig, Code 2.0 (Chapter 7) (read “Solutions” through “Rules to Enable Choice About Privacy”)

• Johannes Köppel, The International Dimension of the SWIFT Affair

Optional Readings

• Hal Roberts and John Palfrey, The EU Data Retention Directive in an Era of Internet Surveillance

• Solveig Singleton, Privacy as Censorship

• Dan Solove, The Future of Reputation (Chapter 7)

• Chris Soghoian, 8 Million Reasons for Real Surveillance Oversight

• Arvind Narayanan and Vitaly Shmatikov, Robust De-anonymization of Large Datasets (How to Break Anonymity of the Netflix Prize Dataset) (Arxiv)

• Noam Cohen, It’s Tracking Your Every Move and You May Not Even Know It (New York Times)

April 30 - The Profitability of the Internet

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=May 7 - No class - final project preparation