This is a google book that discusses some of the same things I mentioned in my post regarding the use of wikipedia and other networks and how that shapes our ideas of freedom.
This seems like a smart commentary on many of the issues we're seeing in the book and it helps modernize the Miller v California debate. It's again, largely focused on the idea of policing rights which focuses on freedoms of expression.
This article (which mentions the Manning situation that is the focus of the video I posted earlier today) outlines the pros and cons of prosecuting Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief and founder of WikiLeaks, for publishing and disseminating thousands of classified State Department cables on his site. The First Amendment is at the crux of this debate: "How do you draft a law that targets WikiLeaks but leaves intact our system of press freedoms?"
Are Wikipedians good historians? As in the
old tale of the blind men and the elephant, your assessment of Wikipedia as history depends a great deal on what part you touch. It also depends, as we shall see, on how you define “history.”
A parable often used to describe the different interpretations of religion.
“avoid bias.”
You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially,
provided … you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License.”
Wikipedia as History
online historical writing
Part of the problem is that such broad synthetic writing is not easily done collaboratively.
Yet what is most impressive is that Wikipedia has found unpaid volunteers to write surprisingly detailed and reliable portraits of relatively obscure historical figures—for
example, 900 words on the Union general Romeyn B. Ayres.
whatever-centric,” they acknowledge in one of their many self-critical
commentaries.
Wikipedia can act as a megaphone, amplifying the (sometimes incorrect) conventional wisdom.
great democratic triumph of Wikipedia—its demonstration that people are eager for free and accessible information resources.
Even Jimmy Wales, who has been more tolerant of “difficult people” than Sanger, complained about “an unfortunate tendency
of disrespect for history as a professional discipline.”
Wikipedia's view of history is not only more anecdotal and colorful than professional history, it is also—again like much popular history—more
factualist.
the problem of Wikipedian history is not that it disregards
the facts but that it elevates them above everything else and spends too much time and energy (in the manner of many collectors)
on organizing those facts into categories and lists.
also affect how scholarly work is produced, shared, and debated
This is an article that discusses the views of professional historians regarding wikipedia. I think it makes a number of interesting claims both regarding the management or historical data and wikipedia's role in promoting a particular historical paradigm.
This short article begins the discussion of what role the Digital Humanities will play when Google comes out with glasses that have cameras built in that will enable "real-time geolocation, facial recognition software, the journaling and storing in the cache and third-party's servers of everywhere you go and see whilst wearing the glasses." He questions how we can use these gadgets to our benefit while still protecting human rights and freedom of speech.
I really like the black-and-white photo in this article that shows the group of people wearing 3D glasses--that's exactly the visual I had in my head while reading this article. It's kind of unsettling to think that that image could become an everyday reality in the not-so-distant future.
This RSA adaptation of Evgeny Morozov's 2009 talk illustrates (and examines) the concept of "cyber-utopianism": the theory that the internet "plays a largely emancipatory role in global politics." Morozov discusses whether or not the internet predominately empowers or censors citizens by facilitating activism and allowing individuals to disseminate information more effectively.