Berkman Buzz: June 24, 2011
A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations
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What's being discussed...take your pick or browse below.
* John Palfrey liveblogs the Future of Law Libraries conference
* Derek Bambauer discusses what new Internet censorship in the UK means for the US
* Berkman intern Joyce Neys reviews the recent Hyper-Public Symposium
* Dan Gillmor asks if ICANN is necessary
* Ethan Zuckerman, the new head of the MIT Center for Civic Media, asks four questions about civic media
* Weekly Global Voices: "China: Attack on a #netfreedom Blogger"
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The full buzz.
"Books, now, have to justify their existence: they make sense and work for certain purposes, but now have to prove that they are the right format. Librarians, too, will persist: we will justify our existence, too."
From John Palfrey's blog post, "Future of Law Libraries: The Future is Now?"
"When there is a system in place to prevent users from reaching bad content, calls to employ it more widely always increase. There’s a limited lobby for unlawful violence and blatant copyright infringement, so the debate tends to be one-sided."
From Derek Bambauer's blog post for Info/Law, "The Widening Gyre"
"Last week on June 10 a range of different disciplines came eye to eye to discuss the changing concepts of privacy and public space at the Hyper-Public symposium. Taking note of the influence of design in today’s connected world the discussions unfolded from many different perspectives."
From Joyce Ney's blog post, "Hyper-Public Symposium at Berkman"
"Are you ready for .xxx, .coke and .insertyournamehere? You'd better get ready, because an organisation with significant authority and scant accountability says you must."
From Dan Gillmor's post for The Guardian's Comment is free, "Can Icann really be necessary?"
"Like a lot of folks in the audience, I don’t think most of my family has any idea what it is that I do for a living, aside from knowing it’s got something to do with computers. So I told people that I was coming to join the Center for Civic Media, which allowed them to ask the obvious – and excellent question – “What the @&#^$%! is civic media?” (If you’d like to get the full effect, imagine the question delivered with a Texas drawl, after the speaker removes a cigar from his mouth.)"
From Ethan Zuckerman's blog post, "Four Questions about Civic Media"
"For all the talk of Internet freedom, little of it takes into account the bleaker reality of inhabiting Chinese cyberspace. Influential tech blogger William Long addresses this with a post criticizing the destructive bent to China's hacker communities, which then brought on a multi-front attack against Long."
From John Kennedy's post for Global Voices Online, "China: Attack on a #netfreedom Blogger"
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Compiled by Rebekah Heacock.
The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the posts of Berkman Center people and projects and sometimes from the Center's wider network.
Suggestions and feedback about the Buzz are always welcome and can be emailed to buzz@cyber.harvard.edu.