Wiki Government: How open-source technology can make government decision-making more expert and more democratic
Beth Noveck, Associate Professor of Law at New York Law School, has an article in the current issue of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas on "Wiki Government: How open-source technology can make government decision-making more expert and more democratic." Berkman's Internet & Democracy project, which studies how the Internet influences democratic norms and modes, including its impact on civil society, citizen media, government transparency, and the rule of law, explores many of the issues Beth discusses in the article.
Beth describes how: "Now, however, new technology may be changing the relationship between democracy and expertise, affording an opportunity to improve competence by making good information available for better governance. Large-scale knowledge-sharing projects, such as the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, and volunteer software-programming initiatives, such as the Apache Webserver (which runs two-thirds of the websites in the world), demonstrate the inadequacy of our assumptions about expertise in the twenty-first century. Ordinary people, regardless of institutional affiliation or professional status, possess information杝erious, expert, fact-based, scientific information杢o enhance decision-making, information not otherwise available to isolated bureaucrats. Partly as a result of the simple tools now available for collaboration and partly as a result of a highly mobile labor market of "knowledge workers," people are ready and willing to share that information across geographic, disciplinary, and institutional boundaries."
Be sure to check out the rest of Beth's article at Democracy, and for more information on the Internet & Democracy project, you can read more on their project page or blog.
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Berkman Blog
Sousveillance
12/18/2007 9:03 am
From the OpenNet Initiative...For better or worse, surveillance is increasingly a part of modern life. Is it effective to continue to protest this increase, and to argue for a different tradeoff between security concerns and privacy or civil liberties? Or is it better to find an alternate way to respond to the increasing use of state-sponsored surveillance? Professor Glenn Reynolds� recent op-ed in Popular Mechanics highlights a different response to surveillance: turning cameras and other recording devices on public officials, a practice termed sousveillance by Professor Steve Mann. Reyonlds suggests that citizen monitoring of official actions by police, politicians, and other 揵ig shots� may be a democratizing force more than capable of countering the tendency towards ubiquitous surveillance. Ultimately, Reynolds asks, 揃ig Brother had a network of security cameras, but could that oppressive regime have survived a network of cellphones?� At first glance, Reynolds� point seems particularly apropos given that the Congressional topic du jour is immunity for telecommunications companies that allegedly complied with illegal government surveillance requests. The debate was sparked by a series of lawsuits, including Hepting v. AT&T, that were generated due to individual citizens providing information about ongoing government surveillance efforts - an apparent case of Joe Public monitoring the activities of the government. It is worth noting, however, that the majority of the evidence against the U.S. telecoms was generated by industry insiders, not by random observers. Thus, while they highlight the possibility of illegal surveillance even in the western world, they hardly suggest that sousveillance is a sufficient counter-measure. If anything, it seems more likely that surveillance can be used to curtail sousveillance than vice versa. Per previous ONI reports, Burma responded to the use of the Internet and citizen journalism during the September protests not only with an Internet shutdown but also with increasing efforts to identify and punish anyone participating in efforts to document and distribute government responses to the protests. Private monitoring of government activity clearly has an important role to play in democratic society, and Reynolds is right to note that technology can certainly enable it. However, this monitoring is most effective when targeted at specific government officials or public government action. Systemic violations, such as the alleged illegal wiretapping performed by telecommunications companies at the behest of the U.S. government, are much harder to identify and counter solely by encouraging and protecting citizen journalists. Moreover, bringing down Big Brother - or exposing U.S. surveillance or Burmese responses to democracy protests - requires more than the technology to enable individuals to expose government malfeasance; it requires tools and policies that protect those individuals from harmful consequences - be they Mark Klein of Hepting v. AT&T or Burmese activists - and limit the ability of governments to use surveillance and other tools to suppress such information. - comment -
Hub 2 and Virtual Education
12/17/2007 6:17 pm
Berkman fellow Gene Koo just wrapped up the semester with his most recent venture into teaching through technology: Hub 2, a course he taught at Emerson College with professor Eric Gordon.
In September 2007, Hub2 began hosting workshops at Emerson to foster civic engagement using the virtual world, Second Life. For three months students and residents have been creating three-dimensional immersive models of sites in the Greater Boston Area. Their work will be used by the City of Boston to assist in future development plans for the city. After class presentations, a ceremonial handing over of the key to Second Life's Boston Island to Mayor Menino took place.
Hub 2 follows Gene's prior efforts with Rebecca Nesson and Berkman founder Charlie Nesson in the use of teaching through Second Life and virtual worlds. CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion took Second Life and Harvard's extension and law schools by storm, incorporating physical, Second Life, and at-large participation. Rebecca has as well surged forward with her most recent class E-4: Virtual Worlds; Charlie, while continuing his trailblazing online, has begun to consider education from angles outside of the spheres studied through Berkman - he's started the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society to teach the development of educational and life skills through poker.
As Berkman continues into our second decade, we're certain to continue a research and teaching agenda that continues to push the educational boundaries. From Berkman co-founder Jonathan Zittrain's rotisserie to H2O playlists to continued and endless question tool instances, the future of the net and the educational opportunities provided by it will be studied, tracked, and driven here.
Happy Birthday Creative Commons!
12/17/2007 3:57 pm
Creative Commons turned five years old this past weekend, and to celebrate, they held synchronous parties all around the world. Happy Birthday to Creative Commons on five amazing years! Executive Director of the Berkman Center John Pafrey also recently help to launch RightsAgent, a platform for licensing and aggregating CC licensed content in a way for "creators to still be liberal and open about sharing their work, while at the same time collecting money for certain uses of it", which you can learn more about from this Q+A from the Xconomy blog.
Calling All Geeks!
12/17/2007 3:14 pm
The Berkman Center is looking for technically inclined support staff with strong tech skills, ability to learn new technologies quickly, curiosity and willingness to tinker and solve odd technology problems. The position is part time, with opportunity for full-time employment over summer; pay is commensurate with experience and starts at $11.50/hr.
As part of the desktop support team at Berkman you'll work providing in-person troubleshooting and technological support to world-class research fellows, staff, and faculty working on cutting-edge internet law and policy issues. Responsibilities will include installation and maintenance of personal computers, peripherals, software and networking in public areas, faculty and staff offices.
Check out the job posting to learn more about the job requirements and application procedure that could land you in the Geek Cave! (a badge of honor around here!)
Primer on Immunity -- and Liability -- for Third-Party Content Under Section 230 of Communications Decency Act
12/17/2007 1:15 pm
From David Ardia of the Citizen Media Law Project...As a lead up to the launch of the Citizen Media Law Project's Legal Guide in January, we'll be putting up longer, substantive blog posts on various subjects covered in the guide. This first post in the series stems from a talk I gave at the Legal Risk Management in the Web 2.0 World conference in Washington, DC. As the token academic, I had the task of providing a general overview of the liability that publishers might face if they allow users to comment on or submit content to their sites. I've adapted this post from that talk. I'll provide some brief background on section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("CDA 230") and highlight the types of claims and online activities it covers as well as the types of activities that might fall outside CDA 230's immunity provisions. Publisher and Distributor Liability
Before I discuss the ins and outs of CDA 230, however, I want to highlight the difference between publisher and distributor liability. Under standard common-law principles, a person who publishes a defamatory statement by another bears the same liability for the statement as if he or she had initially created it. Thus, a book publisher or a newspaper publisher can be held liable for anything that appears within its pages. The theory behind this "publisher" liability is that a publisher has the knowledge, opportunity, and ability to exercise editorial control over the content of its publications. Distributor liability is much more limited. Newsstands, bookstores, and libraries are generally not held liable for the content of the material that they distribute. The concern is that it would be impossible for distributors to read every publication before they sell or distribute it, and that as a result, distributors would engage in excessive self-censorship. In addition, it would be very hard for distributors to know whether something is actionable defamation; after all, speech must be false to be defamatory. - continued -
Adults' Views on Privacy (New PEW Report)
12/17/2007 9:06 am
From Berkman Fellow danah boyd...
PEW has a new report out on adults and privacy: Digital Footprints. It's a solid report on the state of adults' perception of privacy wrt the internet. Of course, what humors me is that adults are saying one thing and doing another. Adults are more likely than teens to have public profiles on SNSs. 60% of adults are not worried about how much information is available about them online. (Of course, young adults are more likely than older adults to believe it would be "very difficult" for someone to locate or contact them.) 61% of adults do not bother to limit the amount of information that can be found about them (including many who are purportedly worried). In other words, adults (and presumably there are parents in this group) are telling teens to be careful online and restrict what information they put up there while they themselves are doing little to protect their own data. This reminds me of adults who tell their kids never to meet strangers online under any circumstances and then proceed to use online dating sites and, rather than meet in public places, choose to go to the stranger's private residence. Adults need to think about safety too - it's not a story of binaries. The safe and practical approach is somewhere between abstinence and uber risky behavior. Both adults and children need to learn how to negotiate safety and privacy in a meaningful and nuanced way. Adults need to socialize young people into conscientious participation online, both wrt to privacy and safety. You cannot simply wait until teens are 18 and then flip the switch and say GO! This has dreadful and dangerous consequences. Anyhow, I'm not doing justice to the PEW report. Read it yourself. It's quite interesting and there's great data and it's well situated. - comment -
Berkman Buzz, week of December 10
12/14/2007 5:40 pm
BERKMAN BUZZ: A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
Week of December 10, 2007
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What's going on... take your pick or browse below.
* David Isenberg decries the use of torture for interrogations.
* danah boyd reflects on the scale of the Facebook Beacon controversy.
* Digital Natives: Digital Niche Communities.
* David Weinberger describes the Nobel Peace Prize concert.
* Citizen Media Law Project: Massachusetts Wiretapping Law Strikes Again.
* Weekly Global Voice: Russia: President Dmitry Medvedev?
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The full buzz.
揟he CIA now claims it no longer videotapes its torture sessions. If this is true, it piles hypocrisy on top of inhumanity. Here's my thinking. If we take at face value that these CIA agents, or their contractors, willingly suspend their human empathy to inflict humiliation, powerlessness and hopelessness, as well as pain, panic and fear of death, on a prisoner for the utilitarian purpose of extracting information, you'd think they'd use any means to capture whatever information was extracted. I'm giving the torturers the benefit of the doubt here. I am assuming that torture might, occasionally, cause the extraction of information that is actually useful, even though we know that's not often the case.�
David Isenberg, �Another Reason Torture-tape-gate is Abhorrent�
揑've been watching the public outcry over Facebook's Beacon (social ads) program with great interest. For those who managed to miss this, Facebook introduced a new feature called Beacon. Whenever you visit one of their partners' sites, some of your actions were automagically sent to Facebook and published on your News Feed. The list of actions is unknown, although through experimentation folks have learned that they include writing reviews on Yelp, renting movies from Blockbuster, and buying things on certain sites. Some partners were listed in the press release. When a Beacon-worthy action takes place, a pop-up appears in the bottom right, allowing you to opt-out. If you miss it, you auto-opt-in. There was no universal opt-out, although they've now implemented one (privacy � external websites � don't allow any websites). Furthermore, even if you opt out of having that bit blasted to the News Feed, it didn't stop sponsors from sending it to Facebook.�
danah boyd, �Facebook's 憃pt-out� precedent�
Q + A with John Palfrey, Executive Director of the Berkman Center
12/14/2007 10:55 am
John Palfrey "got naked" this past week at the Compete Analytics blog with an excellent Q + A, where he discussed the Berkman Center's work, the intersection between cyberspace and law, John's favorite Facebook apps, and much more. With so many smart people focused on the whitespace of the web, how do you make sure regular Joes understand what you抮e up to (and not just perpetual navel-gazing)?
Perpetual navel-gazing is a real hazard. It is also among my worst nightmares.
It抯 crucial to us at the Berkman Center that we抮e not just another ivory-tower think-tank. It抯 important that we do some work that is theoretical and even abstract. We trust also that our work is intellectually rigorous and that our methodologies are sound. But at the same time, we try hard to be certain that we are speaking to an audience online that is bigger than our immediate circle of students and colleagues and other friends.
One way we do that is through our various modes of research, teaching, and activism. We believe in building out into cyberspace as we study it, so we have terrific developers on the team who put up the first blog server at a university, supported the first podcast series, built real-time teaching tools for the classroom, and a whole lot of code for specific research projects. Pretty much everything we do we publish to the web � whether on a blog, on our website, on a podcast, or by video. We are never as successful at this as we抎 like to be, but it抯 a constant area of focus. We think of our work as relevant to a broad audience and strive to avoid navel-gazing wherever possible.
One project where I think we抮e close to getting it right is StopBadware.org. That抯 a neighborhood watch where people can tell us about computer programs and web sites around the Internet that are causing problems to their computers. We work with Google to present you with a warning if you抮e about to hit a site that may be dangerous to your computer. We also promise that we抣l take web sites and applications off the list when they become clean. It抯 been very effective in terms of keeping millions of people from going to compromised sites and also leading to sites and applications getting cleaned up. As with every ambitious research project, it抯 still a work in progress, and we抮e totally open to ideas for how we can do it better.Read the entire interview at Compete's website.
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