FBI Threatens Wikipedia with Legal Action

According to the CNN article "FBI to Wikipedia: Remove Our Seal," the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has threatened Wikipedia with legal action if they don't remove the FBI seal from their site. The seal is featured in an article about the FBI.

The FBI says that Wikipedia must remove the bureau's seal because the FBI had not approved use of the image. They claim that "the inclusion of a high quality graphic of the FBI seal on Wikipedia is particularly problematic because it facilitates both deliberate and unwitting copying and reprinting of the seal's image."

Wikipedia has responded to the FBI with what has been called a "whimsical letter" telling them that they are "off their rocker" and that Wikipedia is prepared to argue their case in court.

What do you think? Should Wikipedia take down the seal?

Week 6 Prompt Response

Wow, I can't believe in just a few short days this class will be over and I will be graduating from Florida State University. I feel like I just got acclimated to being a student again and now it's all over.

In response to the prompt, I have learned a lot in just a few short weeks. When we started, I felt like I was pretty well-versed in social networking utilities, but this class has really expanded my horizon to include tools that aren't completely "social" per se, but are still based on user-generated content.

Just to name a few tools that I've now added into my repertoire are CiteULike, Diigo, Librarything, Ning, Technorati, Second Life and Wikispaces. Through our class produsage projects I also got to see a wide variety of the application of these tools.

I had the most fun creating my own produsage: The Tallahassee 365 Project. I find myself daily looking for things to add, events to post, etc. I'm sure the novelty will wear off at some point but so far I've really enjoyed the project. This was a good way for me to end my master's degree--doing something I liked, rather than a project I hated.

Professionally, I'd really like to starting creating a statewide wiki that can be used by people working in the suicide prevention field to report to my office what kinds of activities are going on in their local communities. I know this seems like something that could be done via email, but a wiki could aggregate the data, be updated all the time, and generally save me a lot of time and effort.

I look forward to learning about even more Web 2.0 tools and how I can integrate them into my daily life in the future.

Week 5 Participation

This week I completed the following tasks for class participation:

• Completed all week five assigned readings.
• Posted three blog entries (this makes four).
• Read all my classmates' blogs and the official class blog, and posted comments on eight separate entries.
• Read week five discussion board content, contributed eight comments, and posted my produsage project.
• Listened to class WebEx recorded session since I couldn’t make the actual meeting.
• Experimented a little with suggested tools: Librarything and Second Life.
• Created produsage project and wrote accompanying paper.
  

The Facebook Data Torrent Debacle

As I logged on to Yahoo this morning to check my email, this little ditty was displayed front and center on my homepage.

A security consultant, Ron Bowes, collected the names and profile URLs for 171 MILLION Facebook accounts (which is a little over a third of total Facebook users), then uploaded the data as a torrent file allowing anyone with a computer connection to download the data. This article provides Q&A for those who may be concerned about their privacy and security risks.

If you’re a Facebook user, does this make you nervous? Are you likely to alter your privacy settings as a result of this data mining?

The Free Problem

In addition to Blogger, another popular blogging website is Wordpress. One of the things I really like about Wordpress is their "Freshly Pressed" page, which is a home page of sorts that features recently updated user blogs on various trendy topics. Today, one of the freshly pressed blogs was Hightalk who had written about the Internet's "Free" Problem.

According to this blog, a recent survey found that 49% of Internet users have tried free micro-blogging services like Twitter, yet 0% of them would be willing to pay for it.

This introduces the Internet's Free Problem-- users do not want to pay for anything that they already receive for free. We have been conditioned to expect certain online services like email, social networks, music, etc. to be provided for us at no cost.

Of course, not all of these free services will be sustainable without eventually asking income from it's users. Just this past month, The Tallahassee Democrat newspaper started charging for online content, and some other periodicals do as well.

What I'm wondering is, if you had to choose between paying for Web 2.0 sites and applications, would you do it or go without? Which ones would you pay for and why?

I would pay for an online email account like Yahoo or Google, but that's about it.

Week 5 Prompt Response

Issues of authorship, copyright, and open access impact my desire, ability and willingness to engage in produsage differently personally and professionally.

Personally, I have minimal hesitancy in engaging in produsage. The materials that I typically produse on a personal level through Web 2.0 applications are just that – personal. I know that if I don’t want people to read or copy my work I can always implement certain privacy barriers so that only myself and select others can see it. However, I can’t imagine that my personal produsage consists of content matter that anyone would actually want to copy. Who really wants to steal or replicate my latest blog update recapping a friend’s birthday party or wedding?

Professionally, I have a great deal of hesitancy to engage in produsage. I am afraid to put my work out there because all too often there are people scavenging the web for papers, professional resources, etc. that they can use or plagiarize and not give credit where it’s due. Since I work in suicide prevention, a little bit of information can be dangerous in the wrong, uneducated hands. For that reason, I am very selective about what I put out there on the web for others to see. The bottom line is that if I don’t think it’s appropriate for public consumption or I don’t want others to copy it, then it stays on my computer.

Week 4 Participation

This week I completed the following tasks for class participation:

• Completed all week three assigned readings.
• Posted four blog entries (this makes five).
• Read all my classmates' blogs and the official class blog, and posted comments on ten separate entries.
• Read week four discussion board content and contributed seven comments.
• Researched online communities for the observations paper and wrote said paper.
• Still checking into outlets for my produsage project and still haven’t made a decision, even though I know the clock is ticking…