Berkman Buzz: Week of January 5, 2009

BERKMAN BUZZ:  A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations.  If you'd like to receive this by email, sign up here.

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

*On the I&D blog, guest blogger Hamid Tehrani looks at Iran's Revolutionary Guards' attempt to control the Internet
*Rebecca MacKinnon updates on China's anti-smut crackdown
*Sam Bayard takes us to the hidden depths of the "Skanks in NYC" case
*Max Weinstein explains the complications of search engines acting as gatekeepers
*Persephone Miel spots an unmarked advertorial in a free newspaper
*Digital Natives intern Diana Kimball tell the sad tale of the death of her laptop
*Publius essay: "Money for Provision and Clicks for Free" by Francois Lévêque
*Weekly Global Voices: "Palestine: 'In Gaza, we are subject to news but cannot see TVs'"

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

"The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) at the end of 2008 made a historic announcement: a project to launch 10,000 blogs for the paramilitary Basij forces. (1) IRGC’s official press organ, Sobh Sadegh, writes that it considered the Internet and other digital devices including SMS as a threat to be controlled. It announced that the 10,000 blogs will promote revolutionary ideas. IRGC considers the Internet as an instrument for a “velvet revolution” and warned that foreign countries have invested in this tool to topple the Islamic Regime..."
From the Hamid Tehrani's blogpost for the Internet & Democracy Project, "Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Take on the Internet"

"I just heard from a Chinese friend who works in the web industry. He says the anti-smut crackdown announced on Monday has already taken three victims at the Guangzhou-based web portal, Netease (Wangyi). He says that this morning， "high ranking officials" were highly angered by some content featured in Netease's entertainment section. They demanded the resignation of three editors responsible..."
From Rebecca MacKinnon's blogpost, "China's anti-smut Internet crackdown takes its first victims"

"Since the story broke in the New York Daily News on Tuesday, there has been a deluge of articles and posts (for example here, here, here, and here) on supermodel Liskula Cohen and her quest for a court order requiring Google/Blogger.com to reveal the identity of the anonymous publisher of the Skanks in NYC blog.  Beyond its gossipy exterior, the case raises the interesting and important question of what kinds of statements can support a defamation claim..."
From Sam Bayard's blogpost, "Anonymity of 'Skanks in NYC' Blogger Could Hinge On Fact-Opinion Divide"

"Frank Pasquale wrote the other day at madisonian.net about the Jekyll and Hyde aspect of search engines as gatekeepers. When a single search engine dominates a landscape, as Google does in the U.S. and Baidu does in China, a drop in page rank, a removal from search results, or a warning about malware or other undesirable content can drop a site’s traffic precipitously. In the case of a business or advertising-supported site, this could be the death knell for a site..."
From Max Weinstein's blogpost for StopBadware, "Search engines as gatekeepers"

"I’m not a regular reader of Metro but I happened to flip through today’s issue while on the Green line. On the 'Careers and Wealth' page I found a text by Ms. Chadha 'Use the Internet to keep on track'  which describes a single product by the Behance network in glowing terms. It includes  3 graphic elements: a picture of the current product and its earlier incarnation and a little button that says 'Learn more at behance.net' which is the website of the company, not of your publication or some independent or generic organization..."
From Persephone Miel's blogpost, "Free newspaper - paid news?"

"On Sunday morning, I woke up, blinked blearily, and opened my laptop. Milo—a 12″ PowerBook G4, from way back in mid-2005—has been known to be ornery, but he usually gets his act together after a few minutes of beach-ball death-spinning. Sunday, though, he hung for even longer than usual; impatiently and trustingly, I pressed the power button to turn the computer off, then pressed to turn it on again. And that is when my computer finally bit the dust..."
From the Digital Natives Project blogpost, "Laptopless, or: Adventures Without Milo"

"Online advertising has boomed and become the fastest growing segment of advertising. In terms of dollars spent, it grew at 40% annually between 2003 and 2007. In the future, advertisers are expected to spend $54 billion on online advertising in 2011, that is, the double of last year. One reason for this huge growth is that advertising can be better targeted online than through radio, TV or newspapers. As is well known, the Internet is a very effective invisible mechanism to collect information on consumers and track their behavior..."
From Francois Lévêque's essay for the Publius Project, "Money for Provision and Clicks for Free"

"Yesterday (6 January) a UN school in Jabaliya refugee camp which was being used as a shelter, was struck by Israeli shells and about 40 people killed. Today, the Israeli military suspended its military operations for three hours, to allow humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip. In this post we hear the reactions of bloggers in Gaza...'"
From Ayesha Saldanha's blogpost for Global Voices, "Palestine: 'In Gaza, we are subject to news but cannot see TVs'"