Presentation at the Internet Governance Forum from a Pew Internet staffer on user attitudes and wants when it comes to Internet governance.

Intriguing editorial on how our digital selves are lacking in complexity and narrative. Here's an abridged version of the Kenyon College commencement speech mentioned in the article delivered by Jonathan Franzen, written for the NY Times: http://www.edrants.com/what-jonathan-franzen-didnt-include-in-his-new-york-times-op-ed/.

Commentary from Jessamyn West: "What we do know is that the US Government has indicted Aaron Swartz [who you may know around the internet for any number of things] for, apparently and allegedly, downloading 4mil articles from JSTOR without (I think?) the proper credentials. Aaron turned himself in. At issue are many points of JSTORs terms of service and what sort of access is given to guests of the university. As Aaron is a net activist, I'm certain this is some level of intentional move on his part, I'm quite curious to see where it goes."

Fun interactive infographic about aspects of the Internet including connectivity, social networking use, censorship and more.

Reminds me of Jane McGonical's talk on games as a means of social change. This game was created by American Public Media, but I wonder the extent to which, if at all, they could source some of the ideas as real recommendations.

Post about Genevieve Bell, the director of Intel Corporation's Interaction and Experience Research, and her views on moral panic - especially when it comes to women and children - over new technology.

"The state librarian of Kansas, with the backing of state attorney general's office, is planning to terminate the Kansas Digital Library Consortium's contract with ebook vendor OverDrive and is asserting the bold argument that the consortium has purchased, not licensed, its ebook content from OverDrive and, therefore, has the right to transfer the content to a new service provider."

A review of the book, "Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright" - perhaps a fair use for dummies - academic edition.

Lessig starts with a story about a documentarian and the specter of litigation in that community of practice when it comes to fair use and clearing images, sounds, etc. in documentary filmmaking. He goes on to consider how to reframe copyright: "[W]e need an approach that recognizes the errors in both extremes, and that crafts the balance that any culture needs: incentives to support a diverse range of creativity, with an assurance that the creativity inspired remains for generations to access and understand."

Interesting way to educate users about privacy settings

Just to backtrack a couple of weeks: I came across this FAQ pulled together by the ALA Office for Information Technology Policy that might be handy as a pocket-guide for the future to supplement the wiki the presenting group compiled.

Opinion-editorial from Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circui, and his law clerk Stephanie Grace on the changing nature of the Fourth Amendment, reasonable expectations of privacy and technology.

I came across this new Droid app that enables users to obscure the faces of individuals in photos or videos they've taken on their mobile devices. The app creators are involved more generally in developing technologies and technology policies for human rights defenders, especially ones that document abuses, protests and other demonstrations and share the videos/pictures through various media channels and see a need to hide identities from repressive governments. I think it ties our discussion last week of Evgeny Morozov's research into the Internet and government oppression into the issue of privacy.

The ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee and the IFC Privacy Subcommittee developed the "Resolution to Protect Library User Confidentiality in Self-Service Hold Practices" after receiving requests from librarians and library users to examine the issue of reader privacy and self-service holds (June 28, 2011).

One aspect of the digital divide that we didn't delve into much in this week's discussion is that of net neutrality - tiers, based on increased cost, that enable access to to "premium" content and faster broadband speeds. This articles provides some great links to other sources on the issue of the digital divide, net neutrality and what some see as a right to the Internet.

In this article, Hargittai likens the digital divide continuum to the varied dimensions of literacy and concludes that addressing the digital divide requires refinement in the understanding of use and skill - and incorporating those varied uses and skills into educational curricula. She explains that "the history of literacy shows that our understanding of functional literacy has evolved considerably over time requiring flexibility in education policy to keep up with the changing landscape." Full Citation: Hargittai, E. (2003). The Digital Divide and What to do About It. In D. C. Jones (Ed.), New Economy Handbook. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

A really interesting series of videos, audio, visualizations, and other outputs from "Hyper-Public: A Symposium on Designing Privacy and Public Space," at Harvard's Berkman Center

Perhaps a manifestation of lessons from JSB? In his keynote speech from Unit 3 he ends noting that organizations should use crowdsourcing, not as a PR opportunity, but one that enables legitimate democratic engagement.

Continuing the "We are all cyborgs" discussion from Amber Case this past unit, I'd like to share a blog that focuses on our relationship to the Internet and technology. Browsing the page I found that the Twitter hash tag #cyberology lends to some really great resources too: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23cyborgology.

This article raises an interesting parallel to our discussion this week on communities and gaming. It considers the idea that young people are experts at how to use computers, games and programs, but not how to make, develop and craft those games and programs: "It's the difference between reading and writing. We're teaching them how to read, we're not teaching them how to write. The narrowness of how we teach children about computers risks creating a generation of digital illiterates." Potentially raises a new line of questioning into the issue of educating millennials and being born into the digital age.