Berkman Buzz: Week of August 24, 2009

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 urges us beyond the Internet box.
* Andrew McAfee defends his definition of "Enterprise 2.0."
* Harry Lewis suggests you make your encryption key at least five days long.
* The Internet & Democracy project catches up on Twitter filtering in Saudi.
* Dan Gillmor sticks up for anonymous speech but encourages skepticism.
* The CMLP contemplates the line between trivial and newsworthy.
* Weekly Global Voices: "India: A wave of suicides among farmers"

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

The full buzz.

"I’ve written often about how hard it is to frame our understanding of the Net. Now I’m beginning to think we should admit that the Internet itself, as concept, is too limiting, and not much less antique than telecom or 'power grid'."
From Doc Searls' blog post Thinking outside the Internet box

"I heard via Twitter a little while ago that some people were taking issue with my definition of Enterprise 2.0, and finally got around to checking out the posts in question. [...] In them I found a mixture of strange statements, flawed arguments, minor quibbles, and points that one could agree or disagree with. I’m tempted to deal only with those points and ignore the rest, but like many other people who traffic in ideas I get upset when my ideas get mangled and mistreated. So let’s take the posts in order."
From Andrew McAfee's blog post A Defining Moment

"A year ago we blogged about the guidelines issued by Department of Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff about laptop searches at the border. [...] I was far from the only person perturbed by this policy. It was rational in its way - they can search your suitcase, so why not your laptop? - and yet it was disturbing."
From Harry Lewis' blog post DHS Limits Laptop Border Searches (a little)

"Evgeny [Morozov] holds Berkman’s Jonathan Zittrain’s feet to the fire on the supposed resiliency of Twitter to blocking, and although he concedes that you can still access the two blocked Twitter accounts here in the US, he’s right that that won’t matter so much to someone trying to read them in Riyad."
From Bruce Etling's blog post for the Internet & Democracy project, Saudi Arabia Blocks Twitterers It Doesn’t Like

"Here we go again — a new attack on anonymous speech, misusing the facts ripped from the current headlines about a case of one person’s slimy online attacks on another. So, as what Maureen Dowd today called the “Case of the Blond Model and the Malicious Blogger” gains publicity steam, Dowd and too many other commentators seem to be missing some key points and drawing the wrong lessons."
From Dan Gillmor's blog post 'Skanky' Blogging, Anonymity and What's Right

"Last week, Courtney Love filed a motion to strike the lawsuit brought against her by Austin-based fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir (a/k/a the "Boudoir Queen"). In her motion, Love invokes California's anti-SLAPP statute...a law designed to deter frivolous lawsuits brought to discourage individuals and organizations from speaking out on public issues or controversies."
From Sam Bayard's blog post for the Citizen Media Law Project, Courtney Love Fires Back in Twitter Libel Suit

"Although the the agricultural sector accounts for 28% of [India's] GDP, a significant portion of the population are involved in this sector either as farmers or in support services. However an epidemic has hit the Indian farmers. Increasingly farmers are resorting to extreme measures like taking their own lives en masse to bail out of pressures of indebtedness and poverty and this has been happening year after year."
From Rezwan's blog post for Global Voices, India: A wave of suicides among farmers