MichaelZimmer.org

I’m very pleased to announce that the fifth book in the MIT Press collection “Information Society Series” I am co-editing with Laura DeNardis has been released: Technologies of Choice? ICTs, Development, and the Capabilities Approach Dorothea Kleine Information and communication technologies (ICTs)–especially the Internet and the mobile phone–have changed the lives of people all over [...]

In its continued support of Open Access as a new norm in scholarship and research, the UW-Milwaukee Open Access Task Force invites the campus community to join us for a day of open access activities: keynote talk featuring Dr. Victoria Stodden professional panel discussion on open access on campus launch of the new UWM Digital [...]

The Chronicle of Higher Education has published an excellent article by Marc Parry on “As Libraries Go Digital, Sharing of Data Is at Odds With Tradition of Privacy,” noting that as libraries are beginning to collect and share patron data to build tools for recommending and discovering books, important concerns over patron privacy emerge, which [...]

Next week I will be a featured speaker at the first “International Symposium on Internet Ethics” hosted by the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) and Korea Society of Internet Ethics (KSIE). Alongside other international representatives, I will be presenting a talk on “Internet Ethics Issues and Action in the United States,” where I outline [...]

I’m currently in Toronto, Canada for iConference 2012, presented by the iSchools organization, a worldwide collective of 33 Information Schools. The theme of the conference is “Culture-Design-Society”, and I will be presenting a paper titled “The ethical (re)design of the Google Books project”. The paper is available in the ACM digital library; the abstract and [...]

Along with Daniel Nagel and Matthias Rath, I am co-editing a special issue of the International Review of Information Ethics on the topic of “Ethics of Secrecy”. The full call for papers is below, and available here. Abstract submission deadline is January 15, 2012. Ethics of Secrecy Call for Papers for Vol. 17 (07/2012) Deadline [...]

I am currently in New Orleans for the American Library Association Annual Conference and Exhibition, where I will be speaking on the program “Promoting Ethical Literacy in Youth: How Librarians Can Partner with Parents and Teachers”, hosted by the ALA’s Committee on Professional Ethics and the Office of Intellectual Freedom. I am lucky to be [...]

Last week, the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee (JFC) passed a budget omnibus motion that affects the entire University of Wisconsin system. Sections 23-26 of the budget measure includes new telecommunication rules that would have extraordinarily negative ramifications, particularly for providing affordable Internet connectivity in support of research collaborations and education at universities, school, libraries [...]

Facebook has provided only a generic comment noting that the gay-kiss image was removed in error. But many unanswered questions remain. Critical questions, indeed, considering the cruel dichotomy of Facebook’s mission to “[Give] people the power to share and make the world more open and connected” and its unquestioned power to control the platform, and thus the conditions under which people are allowed to share.

Facebook recently removed a photo of two men kissing from a user’s Wall due to an apparent violation of the site’s terms of service. This act of censorship has received considerable attention, and while it is reasonable for Facebook to try to control some of the content shared on its platform, there are some fundamental concerns with this case that point to a growing censorship problem within Facebook, especially when considered against the backdrop of Facebook’s potential entry into China.