Scarlet Hamster

Labels: CHI, STC, storytelling, thoughts

As the street protests went on, young Egyptians also were mobilizing and venting their anger over Gaza on what would, until recently, have seemed an unlikely venue: Facebook, the social-networking site. In most countries in the Arab world, Facebook is now one of the 10 most-visited Web sites, and in Egypt it ranks third, after Google and Yahoo. About one in nine Egyptians has Internet access, and around 9 percent of that group are on Facebook — a total of almost 800,000 members. This month, hundreds of Egyptian Facebook members, in private homes and at Internet cafes, have set up Gaza-related “groups.” Most expressed hatred for Israel and the United States, but each one had its own focus. Some sought to coordinate humanitarian aid to Gaza, some criticized the Egyptian government, some criticized other Arab countries for blaming Egypt for the conflict and still others railed against Hamas. When I sat down in the middle of January with an Arabic-language translator to look through Facebook, we found one new group with almost 2,000 members called “I’m sure I can find 1,000,000 members who hate Israel!!!” and another called “With all due respect, Gaza, I don’t support you,” which blamed Palestinian suffering on Hamas and lamented the recent shooting of two Egyptian border guards, which had been attributed to Hamas fire. Another group implored God to “destroy and burn the hearts of the Zionists.” Some Egyptian Facebook users had joined all three groups.

Labels: facebook, Middle East

"I thought, 'OK, I’m not going to see my husband and three children again. And I just want them to know at this point, they were the No. 1 thought in my mind,'" she said. She sent them a text message: "My plane is crashing." There was no time for the final three words she wanted to include: "I love you."

Labels: SMS

• Updated copyright dates
• Two fewer pages than before
• Updated personal information (so it no longer says that I just finished my dissertation)
• Updated my publications list
  

The court ruling, which was announced Friday, specifically mentioned “cyber-violence” and the possibilities for abuse by human flesh search engines, which the three-judge court called “an alarming phenomenon.” The term comes from a widely used compiler of blogs and search engines in China called Renrou, which in Mandarin means human flesh.

Renrou searches have been used by countless bloggers to hunt down otherwise-anonymous Chinese citizens in cases ranging from love triangles to political outrage to cold-case murder.

“For sure the court sees human flesh search engines as a problem and recognizes the need to do something about them,” said Anne Cheung, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong. She said that the ruling directs the Ministry of Information Industry in Bejing to draw up specific guidelines that define personal data and privacy.

In the ruling announced Friday, after the wife killed herself in December 2007, her personal diary was posted on the Internet by her sister. The sorrow and despair of her final days, which she had recorded in a private blog-diary, set thousands of outraged human flesh searchers to work, tracking down the husband and his mistress for vengeance. It didn’t take long.

The husband, Wang Fei, 28, soon began receiving death threats, harassing calls at work and was vilified on the Internet. He and his girlfriend, a 23-year-old co-worker, were forced to leave their jobs at a prestigious advertising agency. And outraged “netizens” besieged his parents’ apartment with protests, threats and obscenities.

The persecution by the Internet vigilantes “seriously hampered my normal life,” said Mr. Wang, quoted by Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency. In April he sued for violation of privacy and defamation, seeking about $20,000 in damages. The People’s Court in Beijing fined the Web site, Daqi.com, the equivalent of $440, plus court fees. Zhang Leyi, a friend of the dead woman, also was fined. Mr. Zhang created a site, orionchris.cn, that included the so-called “death blog” and essentially led to the vigilantism. He was ordered to pay $734 and fees.

Labels: China, search

“Continuous City,” which was developed over almost two years, tells a fairly linear story about families trying to stay in touch as they journey around the world. It also stages the internal experience of using social networks, video chats and blogs.

Throughout the show, for instance, a girl named Sam (played on alternate nights by Caroline O’Neill and Olivia Timothee) chats with her father via computer while he travels the globe. But only the child physically appears onstage. Her father, Mike (Harry Sinclair), is just a projection, and his image often distorts or gets split across several screens floating in space.

James Gibbs, the production’s dramaturge, said these technical flourishes were “both an element of how the story is told and the essence of what the story is about.” He added, “If we use them well, they have the potential to be a visceral experience of how we live our lives now: distracted and multitasking but trying to stay connected.”

Labels: art

New York City has agreed to pay just over $25,000 to a former private school employee who was arrested, interrogated and held by the police for more than 30 hours on a harassment charge after a bizarre e-mail mix-up last year, the man’s lawyer said on Thursday.

The man, William Hallowell, was working as a library assistant at the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx in April 2007 when he had an innocent exchange of e-mail messages with his boss, the library director.

But when the library director mistakenly sent a message meant for Mr. Hallowell to an e-mail address that was similar to his but did not belong to him, the recipient at that address replied with a crude and abusive response. The blame fell on Mr. Hallowell, who has left the school.

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He said he hoped that his suit would lead to better training for the police in how e-mail technology works.

Labels: technology

"The study, part of a $50 million project on digital and media learning, used several teams of researchers to interview more than 800 young people and their parents and to observe teenagers online for more than 5,000 hours. Because of the adult sense that socializing on the Internet is a waste of time, the study said, teenagers reported many rules and restrictions on their electronic hanging out, but most found ways to work around such barriers that let them stay in touch with their friends steadily throughout the day.

“Teens usually have a ‘full-time intimate community’ with whom they communicate in an always-on mode via mobile phones and instant messaging,” the study said."

Labels: technology, youth

Labels: social networking, youth

India: Teenager Is Killed Over Love Letter
A teenage boy who wrote a love letter to a girl from a different caste was thrashed, paraded through the streets with his head shaved, then thrown under a train, the police in the eastern state of Bihar said Thursday. Manish Kumar, 15, was kidnapped by members of the rival caste on his way to school, the police said. One man has been arrested and a policeman suspended.

Labels: India, youth