Are we entering an era where individuals gain new control over their public personas, and powerful means to leverage reputations? Or will we be forced to abandon any hope of protecting our privacy and trusting what we encounter online? When is more information the solution… and when is it the problem?
At Supernova 2008, Wharton Professor Andrea Matwyshyn leads a discussion featuring Bruce Schneier (BT Counterpane), Fran Maier (TrustE), and Gerard Lewis (Comcast).
As established governing bodies of various sorts attempt to impose rules and restrictions on the Internet, the Net continues to have its own “constitutional moments,” including many that are bottom up. The Berkman Center’s recently launched Publius Project (http://publius.cc) is an effort to understand how the Internet is actually being governed, and how that might be changing.
In this session at Supernova 2008, Berkman Center executive director Colin Maclay leads a conversation featuring Joichi Ito (Neoteny), Lili Cheng (Microsoft), Susan Crawford (Univ. of Michigan), and Wendy Seltzer (Berkman Center) about how decision-making processes give rise to norms, rules, and “constitutional moments” that affect both our behavior online and ultimately define the nature of the Net.
Susan Crawford of One Web Day discusses the threats to the Web that exist in many countries (not just the US). She tells Nick Douglas about the September 22nd celebration of One Web Day in many cities around the world.
I could make a remark here about laying down and getting better instead of twittering, but instead I’ll just send best wishes and thanks for a very thoughtful piece. Must be the morphine
…brings together a distinguished collection of Internet observers, scholars, innovators, entrepreneurs, activists, technologists and still other experts, to write short essays, to foster an on-going public dialogue, and to create a durable record of how the rules of cyberspace are being formed, potentially impacting their future incarnation.
The project launches in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, and focuses on “Constitutional moments on the Net.” I wasn’t sure what this meant, so I asked David Weinberger. He answers in the video below.
The first essays published are by several well known Internet luminaries, (including Supernova’s Kevin Werbach.) They are:
John Palfrey with the Preface to the site, David Weinberger on Tacit Governance, Esther Dyson discussing Governance-Tacit or Explicit?, and Kevin Werbach: Steering to the Edge of Trust.
Earlier in the week, I was able to interview David Weinberger via Skype on his essay, and how Tacit Governance has helped the Internet grow to where it is today.
In the one-girl’s-trash-is-another-girl’s-treasure category, Microsoft announced a deal to allow LinkedIn, Facebook and some other lesser-known social networks to scrape Hotmail address books to look for friends.
Some for-profit industry commentators went along with Microsoft’s PR hype, like OnlineMedia Daily. Others, like ZDNet’s Steve O’Hear, were more skeptical.
In other news, Google is bringing the issue of protecting human rights at the cost of the company’s market share to a shareholder vote - adequately reported by Joseph Hunkins at WebGuild. The two proposals up for a vote are that Google would strictly control censorship and data sharing to protect human rights, and that Google would establish a Human Rights Committee to monitor these issues. Google recommends no to both proposals, and they’ll be able to point to the fact that their shareholders voted these proposals down as an excuse for not doing them.
The approach is an attempt to justify Google’s capitulation to anti-democratic policy from countries like China - behavior that they’ve been called to task for engaging in because of their “do no evil” mantra. The sad thing, to me, is that giving a question like this to shareholders: “Should we do the right thing even though it means making less money?” is giving it to the wrong party to decide. Shareholders don’t say no to profits.
It’s the users who should be asked, and the users who can decide to abandon the Google ship if they see objectionable, hypocritical behavior. Insofar as a choice to deny human rights may alienate Google users, the stock prices could fall on a “no” vote — but most of the time issues like human rights in far-away countries can’t compete with great technology and brand. An effective boycott is unlikely, a yes vote is unlikely. Perhaps “do no evil” and “make money in China” are fundamentally incompatible. Perhaps a mantra change to “do no evil except in countries led by repressive dictators” is in order?
