Matthew Battles’s “Palimpsest: A History of the Written Word” is an exploration of the “magisterium of writing,” which is his way of describing writing’s robust and inescapable “influence on human experience.” Rather than a dense, comprehensive history of writing and literacy, Battles, a program fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the author of “Library: An Unquiet History,” offers a meditation on the uses, abuses, and misunderstandings of writing across cultures and centuries, from early pictographic representations to contemporary computing.

Source: Review of “Palimpsest” by Matthew Battles – Books – The Boston Globe

What if we end up living in a world without strict rules on cameras? What if, wherever we go, we know we might be caught on film and the images shared with strangers? It could have the unexpected effect of making our society more tolerant, says Judith Donath at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. If more of us have embarrassing footage floating around on the internet, then perhaps we’ll be forgiving of others who have it too.

Source: The rise of on-body cameras and how they will change how we live – New Scientist

“Of all the things to worry about now in Turkey, to have the country ban a source of information seems both an overreaction and totally misplaced,” says Zeynep Tufekci, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and also a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and a specialist on Turkish Internet activism. “Unfortunately, it seems like instead of controlling the situation, there is this emphasis on controlling the flow of information. It doesn’t work, and it doesn’t address the tumultuous situation to begin with.”

Source: Why Turkey’s brief ban of Twitter was dumb and futile | Public Radio International

Dalia Topelson Ritvo, assistant director of the cyberlaw clinic at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, concurred, saying that it’s important to make sure both parties in the relationship are on the same page. “My best advice for a company is to have clear policies regarding when it is appropriate for an employee to use their own devices, and create technological protocols to ensure the company retains control over the information,” she said.

Source: Technology, the law, and you: BYOD | Network World

One study by Laura Frieder of Purdue University and Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard University, found that the stocks mentioned in those otherwise annoying emails experienced a huge price increase, as well as a big jump in volume, after the messages were sent. Clearly, investors’ skepticism is being trumped by an eagerness to believe. As Zittrain told me: “Greed all too easily colors our objectivity,” and this is true for all types of investors.

Source: Why the Twitter hoax suggests the stock market is near a top – MarketWatch

The online experience is changing rapidly, explains Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain, and not necessarily for the better. We should act to make sure current norms such as web surfing remain unfettered as the Internet evolves. If not, we’ll be allowing Internet powerbrokers to control how and through which means we access online information. Zittrain is author of the book The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It and writes for the blog of the same name.

Source: Let’s Decide the Future of the Internet Before It’s Decided for Us | Big Think

“There’s a huge schism that has appeared between the business and users — the culture,” said David Weinberger, a senior researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. “This is important because the product is the community, unlike Amazon or something. If you alienate your users, there’s no product left; the thing of value is the community they’ve built.”

Source: Welcome to the new Reddit, watch your mouth and stop complaining – CNET

Just take those annoying spam emails that promise a fortune in some penny stock. Believe it or not, researchers have found a large number of investors actually follow the recommendations contained in the spam. One study by Laura Frieder of Purdue University and Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard University, found that the stocks mentioned in those otherwise annoying emails experienced a huge price increase, as well as a big jump in volume, after the messages were sent. Clearly, investors’ skepticism is being trumped by an eagerness to believe. As Zittrain told me: “Greed all too easily colors our objectivity,” and this is true for all types of investors.

Source: Why the Twitter hoax suggests the stock market is near a top – MarketWatch

A community-driven business doesn’t have to run itself the way its community does, any more than an airline’s backoffice should be run by two people in a cockpit. But the business does need to be fluent in the values and dynamics of its community, just as the airline’s CEO needs to understand that passengers should be treated differently than freight. That helps explain why last week the users of Reddit.com, a popular message board, were up in arms.

Source: How Reddit the Business Lost Touch With Reddit the Culture – HBR

While it’s difficult to say what proportion of these claims are erroneous or duplicate, it’s likely to run into thousands per month. Other claims, like the one we’re highlighting today, underline why we absolutely need Google’s Transparency Report and the DMCA notice archive maintained by Chilling Effects.

Source: Bogus “Copyright Trademark” Complaint Fails to Censor the BBC – TorrentFreak