The Yale Information Society Project has announced the 4th Access to Knowledge conference: A2K4: Access to Knowledge and Human Rights. The event will be held at Yale Law School on February 12-13, 2010, hosted by the Information Society Project, in collaboration with an extensive list of organizing partners, including UW-Milwaukee School of Information Studies. The two-day conference will feature plenary panels as well as breakout sessions of working groups organized around specific issue areas, including a workshop I have organized on "Identifying Challenges and Opportunities for an African Information Ethics".
Month: December 2009
Student Poster on Ethical Issues Related to Backscatter Airport Surveillance Technology
Given the renewed focus on full-body "backscatter" surveillance technology, I thought I'd highlight this poster a group of students created in my Spring 2009 "Information Technology Ethics" class (brief news story is here). Airport Surveillance Posterhttp://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=airportsurveillanceposter-091231140539-phpapp02&stripped_title=airport-surveillance-poster View more presentations from…
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Facebook Provides Some Control of Friends List Visibility, But Hides It
One of the most controversial aspects of Facebook’s recent privacy upgrade downgrade has been the removal of the privacy setting allowing users to limit the visibility of their list of friends. Perhaps more than any other set of information on…
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Facebook’s Privacy Upgrade is a Downgrade for User Privacy
Recently I’ve commented on Facebook’s new privacy paradigm, and went so far to applaud Facebook’s promise to give users more specific control over individual posts, as well as the promise to simply its privacy settings. My enthusiasm was tempered with…
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Facebook’s New Privacy Settings to Launch Today
Last week I commented on Facebook’s new privacy paradigm, which they said would launch “in the next couple of weeks”. Seems that process is starting today. Here is Facebook’s spin: Facebook Asks More Than 350 Million Users Around the World…
West Bend Public Library Wins U-Illinois Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award
For its principled stance regarding the recent controversy over certain Young Adult books, the West Bend Community Memorial Library has been awarded the Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award by the faculty of the Graduate School of Library and Information…
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If You Trust Google’s Results, You Can Thank…“PigeonRank”?
Perhaps the greatest ethos surrounding Google’s success is its — and users’ — faith in the algorithm. Users trust Google, and have faith that the results provided are accurate and helpful. Sometimes, however, that trust can be misplaced. Recently, a…
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Facebook’s New Privacy Paradigm: Boon or Bust?
Facebook recently announced significant changes to how information will flow on the social network, impacting users' privacy in both positive and (potentially) negative ways. First, the good news: as hinted back in June, Facebook will be implementing a new feature…
On Google’s New Homepage, Privacy Fades Away
Google has announced a new "feature" to its homepage: upon loading, only the Google logo, the search box and the search buttons are visible. The links to additional products, advanced search function, and the privacy policy, only fade in if…
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