Saturday, December 12, 2015

China prepares to gag free speech champion Pu Zhiqiang; Guardian, 12/11/15

Tom Phillips, Guardian; China prepares to gag free speech champion Pu Zhiqiang:
"Perry Link, an American academic whose wife stood alongside Pu during the 1989 democracy protests, said Chinese leaders were determined to silence a man who had become an expert in “punching the Communist party in the nose in indiscreet ways”. “He has irritated people at the top and they have decided they need to stop him,” said Link, a veteran China expert from the University of California, Riverside.
Pu’s lawyers say he will face two separate charges at Monday’s trial – “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and “inciting ethnic hatred” – and faces up to eight years in jail. Both accusations relate to seven tweets he allegedly posted on Weibo, China’s Twitter, between 2011 and 2014, the year he was detained...
Others fear Beijing will impose a harsh punishment in order to intimidate and silence Pu’s many thousands of supporters. “He is an advocate of free speech – that’s exactly his issue,” said Link. “And if all of these followers can see that our hero of free speech can be put away for exactly the crime of exercising his free speech that is a terrible blow, to internet expression especially.”
“If he gets put away for a longish term it will have a huge chilling effect on the internet in China and that is serious.”"

Friday, December 11, 2015

Senate Panel Leaders Condemn Companies for Drug Price Hikes; Associated Press via New York Times, 12/9/15

Associated Press via New York Times; Senate Panel Leaders Condemn Companies for Drug Price Hikes:
"The leaders of a Senate panel are condemning four companies for aggressively increasing prices for prescription drugs. They say the companies have exploited a system lacking in competition to hike prices for critically needed medicines.
An investigation by the Senate Special Committee on Aging focuses on Turing Pharmaceuticals, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, Retrophin Inc. and Rodelis Therapeutics. The first two faced especially harsh criticism.
"The Turing and Valeant price spikes have been egregious," Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who heads the panel, said at a hearing Wednesday.
Collins added that like those two companies, Retrophin and Rodelis also bought the rights to brand-name drugs whose patents had expired and then hiked their prices.
Public outrage boiled over this fall after news that Turing increased by more than 5,000 percent the price of Daraprim, a drug used to treat a life-threatening infection, jacking it up from $13.50 to $750 per pill."

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian; Northwestern Digital Library Collections, Northwestern University

Northwestern University, Northwestern Digital Library Collections; Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian:
"Sensitive images and text
This site presents the complete contents of The North American Indian originally published by Edward S. Curtis between 1907-1930. The images and descriptions reflect the prevailing Euro-American cultural perspective of Curtis’s time, that Indians were “primitive” people whose traditions represented a “vanishing race”. Contemporary readers should view the work in that context.
In The North American Indian some ceremonial rituals and objects are portrayed which were not intended for viewing by the uninitiated. No material has been excluded or specially labeled in this online edition. All descriptions and images are included in order to represent the work fully."

Greenpeace Subterfuge Tests Climate Research; New York Times, 12/9/15

John Schwartz, New York Times; Greenpeace Subterfuge Tests Climate Research:
"A sting operation by the environmental group Greenpeace suggests that some researchers who dispute mainstream scientific conclusions on climate change are willing to conceal the sources of payment for their research, even if the money is purported to come from overseas corporations producing oil, gas and coal.
Over a period of several months, two Greenpeace employees posed as representatives of energy companies and offered to pay prominent commentators on climate change to write papers that extolled the benefits of coal and carbon emissions. The Greenpeace workers also asked that the payments not be disclosed.
Disclosure of funding for scientific research has been a flash point in the fight over climate change, especially in the case of published scientific research. The effort by Greenpeace, which has a long record of using aggressive tactics to make environmental statements, was to “unravel the story” of industry ties to denial of climate change, said Lawrence Carter, one of the Greenpeace employees involved in the subterfuge.
“It shows a way that fossil fuel money can get into funding these climate skeptic campaign groups,” he added."

Greenpeace exposes sceptics hired to cast doubt on climate science; Guardian, 12/8/15

Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian; Greenpeace exposes sceptics hired to cast doubt on climate science:
"An undercover sting by Greenpeace has revealed that two prominent climate sceptics were available for hire by the hour to write reports casting doubt on the dangers posed by global warming.
Posing as consultants to fossil fuel companies, Greenpeace approached professors at leading US universities to commission reports touting the benefits of rising carbon dioxide levels and the benefits of coal. The views of both academics are well outside mainstream climate science.
The findings point to how paid-for information challenging the consensus on climate science could be placed into the public domain without the ultimate source of funding being revealed."

Santa's Powerful Message For Boy With Autism: 'It's Okay To Be You'; Huffington Post, 12/10/15

Dominique Mosbergen , Huffington Post; Santa's Powerful Message For Boy With Autism: 'It's Okay To Be You' :
"“Santa sat him next to him and took L's hands in his and started rubbing them, calming them down. Santa asked L if it bothered him, having Autism? L said yes, sometimes. Then Santa told him it shouldn't. It shouldn't bother him to be who he is,” Johnson wrote in her post.
Landon told Santa that he sometimes “gets in trouble at school and it's hard for people to understand that he has autism,” but that he's “not a naughty boy.”
“You know I love you and the reindeer love you and it’s OK. You’re a good boy,” Santa told WOOD-TV, recalling the exchange with Landon. “You’re a good boy, you know.”
Johnson said she was incredibly moved by Santa's thoughtful words.
“This stranger in a red suit told my son the same message I've been trying to get through to him for a while now -- that he's special and I love him just the way he was made,” the mom told Today.com. “Seeing Landon's face light up in that moment was just incredible. I couldn't stop crying.”"

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Google's Eric Schmidt calls for 'spell-checkers for hate and harassment'; Guardian, 12/8/15

Alex Hern, Guardian; Google's Eric Schmidt calls for 'spell-checkers for hate and harassment' :
"Google’s Eric Schmidt has called on the technology industry to put its collective intelligence behind tackling terrorism on the internet, by building “spell-checkers, but for hate and harassment”.
Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google’s parent company Alphabet, wrote in the New York Times that individuals, tech companies and governments all have a role to play in ensuring the internet is only used for positive ends...
“We should build tools to help de-escalate tensions on social media — sort of like spell-checkers, but for hate and harassment. We should target social accounts for terrorist groups like the Islamic State, and remove videos before they spread, or help those countering terrorist messages to find their voice.”"

Monday, December 7, 2015

Librarians in uproar after borrowing record of Haruki Murakami is leaked; Guardian, 12/1/15

Justin McCurry, Guardian; Librarians in uproar after borrowing record of Haruki Murakami is leaked:
"Librarians in Japan have ditched their traditional regard for silence to accuse a newspaper of violating the privacy of Haruki Murakami, Japan’s best-known contemporary writer, after it revealed his teenage reading habits...
The Kobe Shimbun revealed Murakami’s reading habits of half a century ago after obtaining the cards from the school’s library that carried borrower entries under the author’s name, Japanese media reported.
The newspaper defended its actions, but the Japan Librarian Association accused it of violating the privacy of Murakami and other students whose names appear on the cards.
“Disclosing the records of what books were read by a user, without the individual’s consent, violates the person’s privacy,” said an association report."

Friday, December 4, 2015

China vows to drive 'smart aleck' lecturers from its universities; Guardian, 12/4/15

Tom Phillips, Guardian; China vows to drive 'smart aleck' lecturers from its universities:
"Zhi Zhenfeng, an academic from the government-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times newspaper the university crackdown was designed “to strike fear in people and to reform their behaviour”.
In his essay, the education minister, said the well-being of the Communist party and Chinese higher education was threatened by the misdeeds of “smart alecks who mislead their supervisors and defraud their subordinates”.
“All levels of party organisations, party members and cadres in the education system must remain vigilant, take action [and] show self-control,” added Yuan, who is the former president of Beijing Normal University.
Yuan sparked controversy earlier this year when he claimed hostile “enemy forces” were attempting to infiltrate university campuses in order to turn young minds against the party.
Books that attempted to spread western values in Chinese education needed to be banned, the minister added.
Liberal academics say the discussion and study of sensitive topics has become increasingly difficult under Xi Jinping, who is now entering his fourth year as Communist party chief."

Baldwin Township man leaves $500,000 to Carnegie Library system; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 12/4/15

Marylynne Pitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Baldwin Township man leaves $500,000 to Carnegie Library system:
"A retired Baldwin Township man who researched his investments at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s Downtown branch did well enough to donate $500,000 to the library system.
Last month, a plaque was installed at the Downtown and Business branch entrance to honor the donor, Orest Seneta, who was in his late 80s when he died in 2011.
Mr. Seneta graduated from McKees Rocks High School and attended the University of Pittsburgh. He moved away but later returned and lived in Baldwin Township at the time of his death. His brother, John Seneta of Dunn Loring, Va., told library leaders that his brother regularly did research on his investments at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s Downtown and Business location.
In a prepared statement, John Seneta said, “This is a fitting tribute to my brother and a way to ensure that others have the same access to resources into the future,” noting how much libraries have evolved over the years since his brother did his research manually...
Ms. Cooper said the bequest was “one of the more significant gifts that we have gotten from an unknown donor. If people are interested in leaving money to the library, we’d love to meet them.”"

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Scholars Unveil New Edition of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’; New York Times, 12/1/15

Alison Smale, New York Times; Scholars Unveil New Edition of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ :
"Not since 1945, when the Allies banned the dubious work and awarded the rights to the state of Bavaria, has Hitler’s manifesto, “Mein Kampf,” been officially published in German. Bavaria had refused to release it. But under German law, its copyright expires Dec. 31, the 70th year after the author’s death.
That allows a team of historians from a noted center for the study of Nazism, the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich, to publish its two-volume, 2,000-page edition, a three-year labor complete with about 3,500 academic annotations.
The intention is to set the work in historical context, to show how Hitler wove truth with half-truth and outright lie, and thus to defang any propagandistic effect while revealing Nazism."

Call and Response; Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/1/15

Tamara Venit Shelton, Chronicle of Higher Education; Call and Response:
"The Call to Action, its list of grievances and demands, has received a mixed response from the faculty here at the college. The majority, including me, have proffered support, but some professors worry that the student movement threatens academic freedom. Will new administrators, additional academic resources, and diversity training lead to more invasive measures that undermine our authority as experts and constrain our freedom of speech?
Those concerns are real. So are the concerns of marginalized students.
As Claremont McKenna rebuilds and moves forward, our faculty, administrators, and students will have to overcome resentment and skepticism. We will have to comprehend one another with humility and empathy.
As professors, we may have to rethink the space of the classroom — from a place under our authority to an environment that we co-create with our students. From my corner of campus, I find myself with a renewed commitment to teaching history and, through history, empathy.
I will not shrink from difficult conversations about race and power."

Young fogies: Modern illiberalism is led by students; Washington Post, 11/30/15

Catherine Rampell, Washington Post; Young fogies: Modern illiberalism is led by students:
"These are real subjects of student complaints, as reported by professors in a new survey released by the National Coalition Against Censorship.
About 800 members of the Modern Language Association and the College Art Association, two large scholarship organizations, participated in an opt-in online poll in the spring. While this wasn’t a scientific survey, it nonetheless was the first major attempt to look beyond isolated anecdotes and better gauge the scope and usage of trigger warnings, among other efforts to bowdlerize academic discourse.
The takeaway? Trigger warning mandates remain rare, but plenty of educators (and presumably students) already feel their chilling effects on speech...
Fewer than 1 percent of survey respondents said their institutions had adopted policies on trigger warnings, but 7.5 percent said students at their institutions had initiated efforts to require them. Twice as many — 15 percent — reported that students in their own classes had requested trigger warnings. Likewise, 12 percent said their students had complained when they hadn’t been warned about distressing content.
A majority of educators (58 percent) said they’ve voluntarily provided some sort of warnings about course content, though the warnings may have been broadly worded and they didn’t necessarily allow students to opt out of course materials."

Coca-Cola under fire over ad showing Coke handout to indigenous people; Guardian, 12/1/15

Guardian; Coca-Cola under fire over ad showing Coke handout to indigenous people:
"Consumer rights and health groups are calling on the Mexican government to ban a new Coca-Cola ad depicting young white people handing out Coke as a service project at an indigenous community in southern Oaxaca state.
The ad has been criticised for its depiction of light-skinned, model-like young people joyously constructing a Coca-Cola tree in town and hauling in coolers of Coke.
Mexico has skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes, especially among indigenous people.
The Alliance for Food Health is calling on the National Council to Prevent Discrimination to pull the ad campaign immediately.
The alliance, a coalition of consumer rights and health groups, says it is an attack on the dignity of indigenous people and contributes to their deteriorating health. Mexico is a major consumer of soda and other sugared drinks.
The ad was publicly posted on a Coca-Cola YouTube channel until Tuesday night when it was removed, after news of the campaign about it broke."

Research Group Funded by Coca-Cola to Disband; New York Times, 12/1/15

Anahad O'Connor, New York Times; Research Group Funded by Coca-Cola to Disband:
"A group called the Global Energy Balance Network, led by scientists and created by Coca-Cola, announced this week that it was shutting down after months of pressure from public health authorities who said that the group’s mission was to play down the link between soft drinks and obesity.
Coke’s financial backing of the group, reported by The New York Times in August, prompted criticism that the company was trying to shape obesity research and stifle criticism of its products.
Public health authorities complained that Coke, the world’s largest producer of sugary beverages, was adopting tactics once used by the tobacco industry, which for decades enlisted experts to raise doubts about the health hazards of smoking. Last month, the University of Colorado School of Medicine said it would return a $1 million grant that Coca-Cola had provided to help start the organization."

Monday, November 30, 2015

Time to Bring Cuba Online; New York Times, 11/30/15

Editorial Board, New York Times; Time to Bring Cuba Online:
"Millions of Cuban citizens could have affordable access to the Internet in a matter of months. The only thing keeping the island in the digital Dark Ages is a lack of political will. Cuban officials have long blamed the American embargo for their nation’s obsolete telecommunications systems. They no longer have that excuse.
Regulatory changes the Obama administration put in place this year provide Havana with a number of options to expand Internet coverage quickly and sharply. If the government took advantage of that, the island’s anemic economy could get a much-needed jolt, and young Cubans who are determined to emigrate, a powerful reason to reconsider."

Sunday, November 22, 2015

A Thanksgiving Miracle - SNL; NBC via YouTube, 11/22/15

NBC via YouTube; A Thanksgiving Miracle - SNL:
"There's only one thing that can keep a family (Beck Bennett, Jay Pharoah, Cecily Strong, Aidy Bryant, Matthew McConaughey, Kate McKinnon, Vanessa Bayer) from fighting at Thanksgiving: Adele."

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Why Facebook Is Monitoring Your Private Videos; Huffington Post, 11/18/15

Huffington Post; Why Facebook Is Monitoring Your Private Videos:
"Parker Higgins, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, explains how Facebook's hunt for copyrighted material is playing out in users' private posts.

Clarion play cancellation generates national discussion on diversity, casting decisions; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/18/15

Bill Schackner, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Clarion play cancellation generates national discussion on diversity, casting decisions:
"Just over a week before the performance was to open tonight, playwright Lloyd Suh demanded that Clarion recast the parts in his play or halt the production. The university opted for the latter.
In the days since the Post-Gazette first reported the cancellation, an emotion-charged debate has ricocheted through social media. At the core of the dispute: should theater productions be 'color blind' in casting, an increasingly common practice over the last few decades? Or is that approach sometimes an excuse for inequity because, as Mr. Suh put it, "The practice of using white actors to portray non-white characters has deep roots in ugly racist traditions?" And just how should theater departments in out-of-the-way places such as Clarion, a small state-owned university whose enrollment is overwhelmingly white, be expected to make choices on picking plays, balancing diversity and challenging a homogenous community against adhering to the intent of the playwright?"

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Matter of rights: Was Otto Frank really Anne Frank’s co-author?; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/18/15

Editorial Board, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Matter of rights: Was Otto Frank really Anne Frank’s co-author?Matter of rights: Was Otto Frank really Anne Frank’s co-author? :
"Otto Frank, her father, was the only family member who survived the Holocaust. It was his efforts that led to the publication of her diary. Until his death in 1980, he was acknowledged as the book’s “editor,” but gave full credit for the text to his daughter.
This is an important point given the new controversy surrounding the book’s copyright. Seventy years after her death, the European copyright is set to expire, but the Swiss foundation that holds the rights wants to prevent it from moving into public domain. The foundation is filing an extension of the copyright based on new information — the claim that Otto Frank is the book’s co-author.
This is contrary to descriptions made about the book since its publication. If the diary had been co-written by her father, then it cannot be properly called a girl’s reflections.
Extending the foundation’s control, until 2050, over “The Diary of Anne Frank” by now claiming Otto Frank is the co-writer is a cynical attempt to control a major revenue stream.
“The Diary of Anne Frank” belongs to the world. Treating it like a mere commodity detracts from its moral authority. Worse than that, making Anne Frank a mere collaborator in her own story is an insult to her memory and what she endured."

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

20 People Found Refuge In A Famous Paris Bookstore During Attacks; Huffington Post, 11/14/15

Ron Dicker, Huffington Post; 20 People Found Refuge In A Famous Paris Bookstore During Attacks:
"A famous Parisian bookstore turned into a makeshift shelter Friday, housing 20 customers who waited out the attacks, according to Twitter users.
Patrons at Shakespeare and Company, the Left Bank literary institution opened in 1951 by American George Whitman, watched from darkened windows as police raced by. They called friends and relatives, and checked on the news, Harriet Alida Lye told The Guardian...
Author Jamie Ford, who recently visited the store, was one of many to tweet about Shakespeare and Company. He told The Huffington Post: "There's a communal spirit about that place, so the idea that they would take in strangers (in need or otherwise) wasn't a huge surprise, but was definitely a much needed reminder of how beautiful humanity can be on a terrible night.""

Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible Role in Paris Attacks; New York Times, 11/16/15

David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth, New York Times; Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible Role in Paris Attacks:
"“I think this is going to open an entire new debate about security versus privacy,” said Michael Morell, a former deputy director of the C.I.A., whose book this year, “The Great War of Our Time,” traced the efforts, and failures, in tracking terror plots.
“We have, in a sense, had a public debate” on encryption, he said over the weekend on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.” “That debate was defined by Edward Snowden,” the former National Security Agency contractor who revealed much about the agency’s efforts to break encryption. Now, he said, a new argument will be “defined by what happened in Paris.”"

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Anne Frank’s Diary Gains ‘Co-Author’ in Copyright Move; New York Times, 11/13/15

Doreen Carvajal, New York Time; Anne Frank’s Diary Gains ‘Co-Author’ in Copyright Move:
"Copyright protections vary from country to country. The classic novella “The Little Prince” fell into the public domain this year in much of the world but remains under copyright in France because of an exception that grants a 30-year extension to authors who died during military service in World War I and II.
Some critics of the foundation have already tested its resolve by posting bootleg copies of the diary online.
Olivier Ertzscheid, a lecturer in communications and researcher at the University of Nantes, received a warning letter this month from a French publisher of the diary after he started circulating a copy online in protest. He removed it, but he and a French politician, Isabelle Attard, said they were waiting to see what happens in January before pressing forward with a plan to encourage publication of the original manuscript more widely online.
“The best protection of the work is to bring it in the public domain, because its audience will grow even more,” said Ms. Attard, who noted that her own Jewish relatives were hidden or deported during the German occupation in France. “What is happening now is a bluff and pure intimidation.”
The foundation insists that by issuing an early warning of its intent to extend the copyright, it is acting ethically to prevent publishers from pursuing a course that might be unproductive and costly.
But if the foundation succeeds, publishers may wind up waiting even longer than the 70 years allowed after Otto Frank’s death."

We Are All Parisians, Again; Huffington Post, 11/13/15

Howard Fineman, Huffington Post; We Are All Parisians, Again:
"Once again, we are all Parisians.
Once again, the ideals of freedom and peace are under attack on the very streets that helped give birth to the idea that you can’t have one without the other in modern life.
Once again, President Barack Obama went to a podium in Washington to declare American solidarity with France -- and to vow that an attack on French society was an attack on the very ideas of decency, modernity and sanity.
And once again, the world -- or that part of it that doesn’t love murder and hate peace -- must rise up and say, simply: Stop."

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Mizzou, Yale and Free Speech; New York Times, 11/11/15

Nicholas Kristof, New York Times; Mizzou, Yale and Free Speech:
"More broadly, academia — especially the social sciences — undermines itself by a tilt to the left. We should cherish all kinds of diversity, including the presence of conservatives to infuriate us liberals and make us uncomfortable. Education is about stretching muscles, and that’s painful in the gym and in the lecture hall...
My favorite philosopher, the late Sir Isaiah Berlin, argued that there was a deep human yearning to find the One Great Truth. In fact, he said, that’s a dead end: Our fate is to struggle with a “plurality of values,” with competing truths, with trying to reconcile what may well be irreconcilable.
That’s unsatisfying. It’s complicated. It’s also life."

Ban Before Reading; New York Times, 11/6/15

David K. Shipler, New York Times; Ban Before Reading:
"The American Library Association gets 300 to 500 reports of book challenges annually and estimates the actual volume at five times that number. If you picture citizens in towns across America parsing every line, however, you’ll be disappointed to learn that many passionate parents are not passionate about reading the books in question.
So it is with would-be censors everywhere. At Theater J, a Jewish theater in Washington, D.C., several conservative activists campaigned last year against an Israeli play they never went to see. And who thinks the Ayatollah Khomeini read past the title of “The Satanic Verses” before issuing his fatwa against Salman Rushdie?"

Grades for all 50 states on corruption; USA Today, 11/9/15

Yue Qiu, Chris Zubak-Skees and Erik Lincoln, USA Today; Grades for all 50 states on corruption:
"How does each state rank for transparency and accountability? The State Integrity Investigation used extensive research to grade the states based on the laws and systems they have in place to deter corruption. Use the interactive to see how states scored overall and explore how they performed in each of the 13 categories."

Understanding the Free Speech Issues at Missouri and Yale; HuffingtonPost.com, 11/11/15

Geoffrey R. Stone, HuffingtonPost.com; Understanding the Free Speech Issues at Missouri and Yale:
"How should we think about the free speech issues in the recent controversies at the University of Missouri and Yale? In my view, universities have a deep obligation to protect and preserve the freedom of expression. That is, most fundamentally, at the very core of what makes a university a university...
In my view, a university should not itself take positions on substantive issues. A university should not declare, for example, that abortion is moral, that undocumented immigrants have a right to remain in the United States, that the United States should abandon Israel, or that a flat tax is the best policy. It is for the faculty and students of the institution to debate those issues for themselves, and the university as an institution should not intrude in those debates by purporting to decide on the "correct" point of view.
On the other hand, a university can promote certain values both to educate its students and to foster an intellectual environment that is most conducive to the achievement of the institution's larger educational goals. To that end, a university can appropriately encourage a climate of civility and mutual respect. It can do this in a variety of ways, as long as it stops short of censorship. More specifically, a university can legitimately educate students about the harms caused by the use of offensive, insulting, degrading, and hurtful language and behavior and encourage them to express their views, however offensive or hurtful they might be, in ways that are not unnecessarily disrespectful or uncivil."

Sunday, November 8, 2015

The Ethics Behind Driverless Cars; NPR, 11/7/15

Scott Simon, NPR; The Ethics Behind Driverless Cars:
"Despite the optimism behind driverless cars, at times they will have to decide whether it is better to harm the driver or pedestrians. NPR's Scott Simon talks with philosophy professor Patrick Lin."

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

The Digital Disparities Facing Lower-Income Teenagers; New York Times, 11/3/15

Natasha Singer, New York Times; The Digital Disparities Facing Lower-Income Teenagers:
"Teenagers in lower-income households have fewer desktop, laptop and tablet computers to use at home than their higher-income peers, according to a new study. And those disparities may influence more than how teenagers socialize, entertain themselves and apply for college or jobs.
At a time when school districts across the United States are introducing digital learning tools for the classroom and many teachers give online homework assignments, new research suggests that the digital divide among teenagers may be taking a disproportionate toll on their homework as well.
Only one-fourth of teenagers in households with less than $35,000 in annual income said they had their own laptops compared with 62 percent in households with annual incomes of $100,000 or more, according to the report, to be published on Tuesday by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit children’s advocacy and media ratings group based in San Francisco."

The Facebook Intifada; New York Times, 11/3/15

Micah Lakin Avni, New York Times; The Facebook Intifada:
"The companies who’ve turned social media platforms into very big business argue, and rightly so, that monitoring each post is nearly impossible, that permitting users the freedom of expression is essential, that there are already steps in place to combat hate speech. All that is true. But something new is happening today, and what Facebook, Twitter and the others must realize is that the question of incitement on social media isn’t just a logistical or financial question but, first and foremost, a moral one.
This wave of terrorism is different from anything we’ve seen, involving not terrorists recruited by shadowy organizations but ordinary young men and women inspired by hateful and bloody messages they see online to take matters and blades into their own hands. Just as many of us now argue that we should hold gun manufacturers responsible for the devastation brought about by their products, we should demand the same of social media platforms, now being used as sources of inspiration and instruction for murderers.
One immediate solution is to remove blatant incitement without waiting for formal complaints — it’s one thing to express a political opinion, even one that supports violent measures, and another to publish a how-to chart designed to train and recruit future terrorists."

Saturday, October 24, 2015

The Patent Troll Smokescreen; New York Times, 10/23/15

Joe Nocera, New York Times; The Patent Troll Smokescreen:
"But what if, in the name of cracking down on trolls, Congress passes an anti-troll law that winds up having huge negative consequences for legitimate inventors? What if a series of Supreme Court rulings make matters worse, putting onerous burdens on inventors while making it easier for big companies to steal unlicensed innovations?
As it happens, thanks to the 2011 America Invents Act and those rulings, big companies can now largely ignore legitimate patent holders.
Of course, they don’t call it stealing. But according to Robert Taylor, a patent lawyer who has represented the National Venture Capital Association, a new phrase has emerged in Silicon Valley: “efficient infringing.” That’s the relatively new practice of using a technology that infringes on someone’s patent, while ignoring the patent holder entirely. And when the patent holder discovers the infringement and seeks recompense, the infringer responds by challenging the patent’s validity.
Should a lawsuit ensue, the infringer, often a big tech company, has top-notch patent lawyers at the ready. Because the courts have largely robbed small inventors of their ability to seek an injunction — that is, an order requiring that the infringing product be removed from the market — the worst that can happen is that the infringer will have to pay some money. For a rich company like, say, Apple, that’s no big deal."

Friday, October 23, 2015

Free speech is flunking out on college campuses; Washington Post, 10/22/15

Catherine Rampell, Washington Post; Free speech is flunking out on college campuses:
"Crippling the delivery of unpopular views is a terrible lesson to send to impressionable minds and future leaders, at Wesleyan and elsewhere. It teaches students that dissent will be punished, that rather than pipe up they should nod along. It also teaches them they might be too fragile to tolerate words that make them uncomfortable; rather than rebut, they should instead shut down, defund, shred, disinvite.
But the solution to speech that offends should always be more speech, not less."

Thursday, October 22, 2015

When The Hackers Become The Hacked: Why Reading John Brennan's Emails Feels Wrong; HuffingtonPost.com, 10/21/15

Ali Watkins, HuffingtonPost.com; When The Hackers Become The Hacked: Why Reading John Brennan's Emails Feels Wrong:
"But Wikileaks is not bound by the journalistic code that most news organizations adhere to. (A request for comment from a public relations representative for the group was not returned.)
To some, it seemed a delightfully cruel irony: America’s spy chief, keeper of secrets, forced to frantically try and guard his own. But to others -- including some of the people whose very job it is to be critical of Brennan and his agency -- Wednesday's email dump felt different. It felt slimy. A bit exploitative. It feels odd to challenge Brennan and the CIA on things like his agency’s historical disregard for citizens' personal privacy -- and then turn around and casually disregard his."

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Film-maker sues Chinese censors over 'ban' on gay-themed movie; Guardian, 9/24/15

Ben Child, Guardian; Film-maker sues Chinese censors over 'ban' on gay-themed movie:
"A Chinese film-maker is to sue state administrators in a quest to discover how and why his gay-themed documentary was removed from local streaming sites, in a legal case that could have powerful ramifications for film censorship in the world’s most populous nation.
Fan Popo says his documentary Mama Rainbow, which follows six Chinese mothers as they learn to love their gay or lesbian children, disappeared without explanation from video sites such as Youku, Tudou and 56.com in 2014."

Why do drug companies charge so much? Because they can.; Washington Post, 9/25/15

Marcia Angell, Washington Post; Why do drug companies charge so much? Because they can. :
"Drugmakers are now getting some pushback from the public in response to their claims that they need the money, but they fall back on the rhetoric of the free market. They are investor-owned businesses, after all, they say, and they have a right to charge whatever the market will bear (which for desperately sick patients or their insurers is quite a lot). But the pharmaceutical market is hardly an example of unfettered capitalism, because the companies are totally dependent on government support. In addition to receiving huge tax breaks and government-granted exclusive marketing rights, they are permitted to acquire drugs that resulted from NIH-funded university research."

Researchers wrestle with a privacy problem; Nature, 9/22/15

Erika Check Hayden, Nature; Researchers wrestle with a privacy problem:
"But for many social scientists, the most impressive thing was that the authors had been able to examine US federal tax returns: a closely guarded data set that was then available to researchers only with tight restrictions. This has made the study an emblem for both the challenges and the enormous potential power of 'administrative data' — information collected during routine provision of services, including tax returns, records of welfare benefits, data on visits to doctors and hospitals, and criminal records. Unlike Internet searches, social-media posts and the rest of the digital trails that people establish in their daily lives, administrative data cover entire populations with minimal self-selection effects: in the US census, for example, everyone sampled is required by law to respond and tell the truth.
This puts administrative data sets at the frontier of social science, says John Friedman, an economist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and one of the lead authors of the education study1. “They allow researchers to not just get at old questions in a new way,” he says, “but to come at problems that were completely impossible before.”...
But there is also concern that the rush to use these data could pose new threats to citizens' privacy. “The types of protections that we're used to thinking about have been based on the twin pillars of anonymity and informed consent, and neither of those hold in this new world,” says Julia Lane, an economist at New York University. In 2013, for instance, researchers showed that they could uncover the identities of supposedly anonymous participants in a genetic study simply by cross-referencing their data with publicly available genealogical information."

Tech giants warn cybersecurity bill could undermine users' privacy; Guardian, 10/15/15

Sam Thielman, Guardian; Tech giants warn cybersecurity bill could undermine users' privacy:
"Some of the biggest names in tech including Google, Yahoo, Facebook and T-Mobile have come out against a controversial cybersecurity bill, arguing that it fails to protect users’ privacy and could cause “collateral harm” to “innocent third parties”.
In an open letter published on Thursday the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a trade group representing those and several other major tech firms including eBay and RedHat, came out staunchly against the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (Cisa).
The bill, which has bipartisan support, would, among other things, allow companies to share users’ personal information with the US government in exchange for immunity from regulators and the Freedom of Information Act. It will receive a Senate vote later this month."

Data Privacy Pact Must Be Forged Between Europe And U.S., Regulators Warn; HuffingtonPost.com, 10/16/15

Julia Fioretti, HuffingtonPost.com; Data Privacy Pact Must Be Forged Between Europe And U.S., Regulators Warn:
"Companies could face action from European privacy regulators if the European Commission and United States do not come up with a new system enabling them to shuffle data across the Atlantic in three months, the regulators said on Friday.
The highest EU court last week struck down a system known as Safe Harbour used by over 4,000 firms to transfer personal data to the United States, leaving companies without alternatives scrambling to put new legal measures in place to ensure everyday business could continue.
Under EU data protection law, companies cannot transfer EU citizens' personal data to countries outside the EU deemed to have insufficient privacy safeguards, of which the United States is one."

Friday, October 16, 2015

Pennsylvania bills aim to protect students’ data; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/14/15

Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Pennsylvania bills aim to protect students’ data:
"The introduction follows by two months the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s series on student data privacy, which showed that most of the state’s largest districts did not control the flow of their kids’ information through education technology companies. Fewer than half of the districts’ vendors publicly outlined their policies for deleting student data or pledged to protect it in a merger or bankruptcy, and just 10 of 143 promised to report any breach.
The bills wouldn’t ban apps like the poster-making program Glogster, which markets to teachers and indicates in its privacy policy that it may share “personal information” with “consumer products, telecom, financial, military, market research, entertainment, and educational services companies and their third party service providers.” But the districts would first need to notify parents, who could say no."

Author explains why libraries matter even in the Internet age; Deseret News, 9/21/15

Chandra Johnson, Deseret News; Author explains why libraries matter even in the Internet age:
"Today, when people want information on the Internet, they turn to Google.
The search engine has grown in popularity exponentially since its first year in the late 90s. In 1998, Google averaged 9,800 searches per day and 3.6 million searches that year. In 2014, there was an average of 5.7 billion Google searches per day and 2 trillion searches that year.
All of this is good news for Google and anyone with money for a computer and Internet connection. But it's not great for libraries, the go-to for information in the pre-Google days, says John Palfrey, a director of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and founder of the Digital Public Library of America.
In his new book, "Bibliotech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google," Palfrey argues that society still needs libraries for many reasons, including that the Internet doesn't provide free access to information for anyone as libraries do."

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Handheld DNA reader revolutionary and democratising, say scientists; Guardian, 10/15/15

Ian Sample, Guardian; Handheld DNA reader revolutionary and democratising, say scientists:
"Ip believes that people will soon be connecting MinIONs to smartphones, and with Oxford Nanopore due to offer a pay-as-you-go pricing model, that could transform access to genetic testing. “If anyone had the ability to do DNA sequencing with a mobile phone with attachable DNA sequencer, what could you do with it?” she said.
If that pans out, the possibilities are almost endless. GPs could analyse patients’ breath to identify bacteria that are making them ill. Health workers could use them to hunt for reservoirs of drug-resistant microbes in hospitals. Animal hairs and skin could be analysed to catch poachers and traffickers of endangered animals. Inspectors at fish markets could verify what fish is being sold. In the water-cooling towers of office buildings, you could install a device to scan for the bacteria that causes Legionnaire’s disease.
But that is not all. “There will be undoubtedly be Gattaca-style apps which, given a hair, will tell you the genetic compatibility of a potential boy or girlfriend, although doing so is fraught with ethical issues of data interpretation,” Ip said."

Stop Googling. Let’s Talk; New York Times, 9/26/15

Sherry Turkle, New York Times; Stop Googling. Let’s Talk:
"I’ve been studying the psychology of online connectivity for more than 30 years. For the past five, I’ve had a special focus: What has happened to face-to-face conversation in a world where so many people say they would rather text than talk? I’ve looked at families, friendships and romance. I’ve studied schools, universities and workplaces. When college students explain to me how dividing their attention plays out in the dining hall, some refer to a “rule of three.” In a conversation among five or six people at dinner, you have to check that three people are paying attention — heads up — before you give yourself permission to look down at your phone. So conversation proceeds, but with different people having their heads up at different times. The effect is what you would expect: Conversation is kept relatively light, on topics where people feel they can drop in and out."

Wikileaks release of TPP deal text stokes 'freedom of expression' fears; Guardian, 10/9/15

Sam Thielman, Guardian; Wikileaks release of TPP deal text stokes 'freedom of expression' fears:
"One chapter appears to give the signatory countries (referred to as “parties”) greater power to stop embarrassing information going public. The treaty would give signatories the ability to curtail legal proceedings if the theft of information is “detrimental to a party’s economic interests, international relations, or national defense or national security” – in other words, presumably, if a trial would cause the information to spread...
“The text of the TPP’s intellectual property chapter confirms advocates warnings that this deal poses a grave threat to global freedom of expression and basic access to things like medicine and information,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of internet activist group Fight for the Future. “But the sad part is that no one should be surprised by this. It should have been obvious to anyone observing the process, where appointed government bureaucrats and monopolistic companies were given more access to the text than elected officials and journalists, that this would be the result.”"

Thursday, October 8, 2015

India’s Attack on Free Speech; New York Times, 10/2/15

Sonia Faleiro, New York Times; India’s Attack on Free Speech:
The realization has made for decisions that were once unthinkable.
Last December, the acclaimed author Perumal Murugan informed the police that he’d received threats from Hindu groups angered by a novel he wrote in 2010. Extremists staged burnings of his book and demanded a public apology from him. The police suggested he go into exile. Realizing he was on his own, in January Mr. Murugan announced the withdrawal of his entire literary canon. On Facebook, he swore to give up writing, in essence apologizing for his life’s work out of fear for his family’s safety...
The attacks in India should not be seen as a problem limited to secular writers or liberal thinkers. They should be recognized as an attack on the heart of what constitutes a democracy — and that concerns everyone who values the idea of India as it was conceived and as it is beloved, rather than an India imagined through the eyes of religious zealots. Indians must protest these attacks and demand accountability from people in power. We must call for all voices to be protected, before we lose our own."

Thursday, October 1, 2015

The 10 most frequently banned books since 2001; Entertainment Weekly, 9/29/15

Christian Holub, Entertainment Weekly; The 10 most frequently banned books since 2001:
"'And Tango Makes Three,' Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
Years on Most Challenged list: 2014, 2012, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006
Reasons cited: “Homosexuality, anti-family, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group”
Based on the true story of Rory and Silo, two male penguins in New York’s Central Park Zoo who formed a couple and raised a baby together, And Tango Makes Three has been controversial ever since its 2005 publication. The depiction of a natural, healthy homosexual relationship among animals has raised the ire of conservative parents and advocates, some of whom believe the book promotes “the homosexual agenda.”"

#WatchWhatYouSay; Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/28/15

Frank Donoghue, Chronicle of Higher Education; #WatchWhatYouSay:
"Most academics are familiar with one or more well-­publicized incidents in which professors were suspended, were fired, or had a hiring contract rescinded because of controversial statements they had made on social media. That common denominator should give pause to all academics who value their jobs...
The courts may ultimately decide these cases, but as things stand now I think they illustrate that academic freedom is in danger of becoming a hollow concept as academics are increasingly active, if naïve, users of social media.
Even given the high cost to colleges of trying to remove a tenured professor, tenure obviously doesn’t provide adequate protection. What’s more, a smaller and smaller proportion of the higher-education teaching work force has tenure or is eligible for it; removing the tenure-ineligible is as simple as not renewing their contracts.
That demographic development, combined with the impossibility of containing social media, means that all academics must exercise extreme caution."

The Coddling of the American Mind; Atlantic, September 2015

Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, Atlantic; The Coddling of the American Mind:
"Two terms have risen quickly from obscurity into common campus parlance. Microaggressions are small actions or word choices that seem on their face to have no malicious intent but that are thought of as a kind of violence nonetheless. For example, by some campus guidelines, it is a microaggression to ask an Asian American or Latino American “Where were you born?,” because this implies that he or she is not a real American. Trigger warnings are alerts that professors are expected to issue if something in a course might cause a strong emotional response. For example, some students have called for warnings that Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart describes racial violence and that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby portrays misogyny and physical abuse, so that students who have been previously victimized by racism or domestic violence can choose to avoid these works, which they believe might “trigger” a recurrence of past trauma."

Lawmaker proposes revamp of Pittsburgh Ethics Committee that last met in 2008; WPXI.com, 9/30/15

WPXI.com; Lawmaker proposes revamp of Pittsburgh Ethics Committee that last met in 2008:
According to the city’s website, the Ethics Hearing Board was established to maintain high standards of personal integrity, truthfulness and fairness among employees. However, the mayor’s office said the board’s last meeting took place in November 2008...
This week Gilman proposed legislation to fix what he calls the loopholes in the city’s ethics system. He wants to create a new board staffed with experts independent from City Hall and with whistleblower protection.
"If they speak out about something, they're not going to face reprisal from the people who have power. The thing about power is that it always needs to be checked,” Dr. Alex John London, of Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Ethics and Policy, said."

Complex Car Software Becomes the Weak Spot Under the Hood; New York Times, 9/26/15

David Gelles, Hiroko Tabuchi, and Matthew Dolan, New York Times; Complex Car Software Becomes the Weak Spot Under the Hood:
“We should be allowed to know how the things we buy work,” Mr. Moglen of Columbia University said. “Let’s say everybody who bought a Volkswagen were guaranteed the right to read the source code of everything in the car,” he said.
“Ninety-nine percent of the buyers would never read anything. But out of the 11 million people whose car was cheating, one of them would have found it,” he said. “And Volkswagen would have been caught in 2009, not 2015.”
Automakers aren’t buying the idea...
Volkswagen, through its trade association, has been one of the most vocal and forceful opponents of an exemption to a copyright rule that would allow independent researchers to look at a car’s source code, said Kit Walsh, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group for user privacy and free expression.
“If copyright law were not an impediment,” he said, “then we could have independent researchers go in and look at the code and find this kind of intentional wrongdoing, just as we have independent watchdogs that check vehicle safety with crash-test dummies.”"