As a suite, we decided to write a rap as an educational piece, lecturing small children about the risks involved in hateful speech and defamatory claims against an individual/others. The introduction begins with a terse explanation of defamation in U.S. law and common defenses in court. Transitioning into the topic of defamation per se, the rap speaks about the difference of defamation per se as compared to regular defamation, specifically, that damages are assumed for defamation per se.
Utilizing celebrity cameos, the rap introduces the four specific instances of defamation per se and continues to provide detailed circumstances under which each could be found applicable or a notable exception. Explicitly, the four categories are allegations or imputations injurious to one’s profession, of criminal activity, of loathsome disease, and of unchastity, which is duly noted in the rap’s chorus.
In addition to the four instances of defamation per se, Internet libel laws are also discussed as a means of exhibiting the relevance of defamation laws in modern culture and technology.
We aptly decided to construct this project as a rap song in order to cast the subject matter of defamation into the medium of aggressive hip-hop, a genre which is often plagued with defamation within its context, thus creating a parody of the genre and of defamation itself – allowing us to discuss and commit speech acts that might otherwise be construed as defamatory.
With much serendipity, we invited many famous artists from the hip-hop industry to spit their game on this track. In a surprising turnout, we were able to have featured performances by The Ying Yang Twins, Chris Ludacris Bridges, Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross, Eminem, T-Pain, Dr. Dre, Jamarius Brahamz, Gangreeeeeeen, and Notorious B.I.G. (posthumously). Unfortunately we could not produce a promotional video due to scheduling conflicts and the fact that one individual is currently deceased. Much to our surprise, our producers have signed a contract for another track to be released in the near future. Follow us on twitter @twitter.com/FratCity.
Here is the link to the song: http://soundcloud.com/defamed-part-1/defamed-part-1-final
Jamar Bromley
Matthew Prewitt
John Greenawalt
As part of my final project, I was interested in the way health care and health care related information is provided on smartphones. Because I am interested in mental health care, I looked at apps relating to mental health care in particular. Moreover, because Google’s Android system and Apple’s iPhone currently dominate the majority of the smartphone market, I compared the results of my project on both markets. One purpose of my research is to investigate how people access apps in pursuit of mental health services. To investigate this, I compared results for various search terms related to popular mental health concerns. These included general symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and panic attacks, as well as specific searches for ten of the most common mental disorders, such as major depressive disorder, social anxiety disorder, and anorexia.
Once the search was initiated, I took inventory of several factors: total apps returned, total relevant apps returned, total apps that were free, and for the specific disorder searches, a count of how many apps were directly related to the disorders in question. The most important results of my project are here:
Side by side comparison of results between the Android Market and the iPhone App Store. Average utility refers to the number of relevant apps compared to total apps for all searches.
Android Full Results
iPhone Full Results
First, the Android surpassed the iPhone in how many total apps were produced for each search term and in each search category. This reflects the fact that, for each search term, I found that the Android was generally much more responsive to general terms in producing associated applications, however, the iPhone was better at returning more relevant apps, as indicated by it’s higher utility value.
Though the Android was much more generally responsive to search terms, it appears as though the iPhone was much better at only returning relevant apps. It seems as though the Android may bloat the number of relevant apps presented to the individual conducting a search. This could frustrate users seeking help, which in turn may repel individuals seeking help from doing so on the Android platform. iPhone users, and in turn, developers, may appreciate the ease of use and lack of clutter provided by the App Store.
Apple's App Review Guidelines may have something to do with this. The Android Market currently has no equivalent.
Another important result to highlight is that the Android surpassed the iPhone in the availability of apps tailored to the alleviation of a specific disorder. In nearly every case, the Android returned more overall apps than the iPhone did. The case of GAD and Major Depression were most notable in that the iPhone failed to recognize any relevant results, while the Android proved mildly successful. Because the iPhone did respond to and produce results tailored specifically to “depression,” this may not reflect an availability issue, but rather an accessibility issue with the way the search engines return information.
Because there were significant differences between both platforms, and some clinicians acknowledge this to promote the use of one platform like the iPhone, there are several potential implications. A clinician I work with told me that the iPhone is the preferred platform, for him and for others, in releasing mobile mental health care services mostly because of the ease of use and accessibility of the iPhone. But Apple products are typically more expensive than Android equivalents, and this difference in population may further promote the divide between individuals who seek mental health care. Financial concerns are one of the obstacles to accessing mental health care. If the iPhone comes to dominate the use of mobile mental health care, then this could alienate individuals who seek access to mental health care on apps but for whom financial troubles prevent access to both the iPhone and professional mental health services. In this regard, it is also worth mentioning that the Android market provided more free apps. If developers move to the iPhone, accessibility for those who have an Android device may further decrease.
Though these apps may be useful, developers must be cognizant of demographics of iPhone and Android users
Moving forward, one thing that would be important to look at is issues of legitimacy of apps like these. In professional mental health care, government law and agencies, high barriers to entry into mental health care fields, and peer review processes help us determine who is a trusted clinician and what forms of therapy are valid. For example, Twitter provides an excellent example of this: Twitter allows users to mark their profiles as “Official” in order to prevent fraud or misattribution of information. Such a similar feature could likely be presented in the future for apps mental health apps, as they are a sensitive issue. For now, however, most likely most people will rely on proxy sources like official consumer reviews and news, such as from the New York Times, and suggestions from doctors or therapists on which applications to seek.
Out of a flurry of fights in recent years over online privacy and personal data in the European Union has emerged an interesting – and extremely popular – concept: the right to be forgotten online. Essentially, the right to be forgotten online is the right to force a website to cease hosting, linking to or storing personal information about yourself. According to a recent poll commissioned by the European Union, 90% of Europeans support the right to be forgotten online.
Warning label distributed with this right: you may forget who you are without a Facebook profile to remind you (image created by Flickr user Guudmorning!)
So what exactly does the right to be forgotten online mean for Europeans? According to the latest draft of upcoming changes to the EU data privacy regulations, it is:
the right that their personal data will be erased and no longer processed, where they have withdrawn their consent for processing or where they object to the processing of personal data concerning them.
More concretely, it is also defined in the draft as:
the right to obtain erasure of any public Internet link to, copy of, or replication of the personal data relating to the data subject contained in any publicly available communication service
On its face, this sounds like a good thing! People should have the right to remove their personal data from public circulation, right? Google’s Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleisher suggests that the right to be forgotten is not the answer, pointing out:
- This right raises difficult-to-resolve issues of personal privacy vs. freedom of expression in cases where others retweet or repost something you have put online and later regretted – for example, it could be a photo of you and a friend, which the friend then reposts. When you ask Facebook to remove the photo from your friend’s album where he reuploaded it, citing it as your personal data, how does Facebook decide whether to support to your right to be forgotten or your friend’s right to free speech?
- What about journalism and the historical record? Where does one draw a balance between public interest in knowing the news and the personal “right” to anonymity – and should it really be up to the content provider to decide?
- To whom should these regulations apply? To websites hosted in the EU? To companies with headquarters in the EU? To websites with users in the EU? The regulations may be so difficult to enforce as to be worthless.
Although the right to be forgotten online sounds noble and is extremely popular, it is fraught with difficult moral questions, the burden of which current draft regulations place squarely on the shoulders of content providers. It is encouraging that EU citizens are enthusiastic about their privacy online, but it is clear that more work is needed before the right regulatory solution is found.
My project was set up as an experiment to test our awareness and expectations of online privacy. My hypothesis was that Internet users are largely unaware of the amount of information accumulated and aggregated about them online. We have an “anonymity of Manhattan” mindset: we believe that no one will pick us out from the crowd of billions of users. Everyone publishes their name, email, birthday, and address for sign-ups. Everyone has incriminating pictures on Facebook, follows the Jersey Shore cast on Twitter, buys embarrassing books on Amazon, and looks up basic concepts on Wikipedia. We seem to think that it is a slim chance that someone, one day, would use our information against us. And even if they did, the cost of this chance does not outweigh the multitude of benefits the Internet gives us. For this reason, I predicted that while most people hope for some level of privacy online, they are largely apathetic to understanding and enforcing it.
To test that hypothesis, I focused on the privacy policies of five websites: Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Wikipedia. I chose these sites for two reasons. First, they are all, of course, in the top 10 most visited sites globally. Second, searching myself on a site called PeekYou, which helps you find people online, I discovered a profile of myself that included links to my Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia accounts, as well as a list of my most recent Amazon purchases (and for $39.99 I could order a full background check on myself). Bewildered by how this information had been leaked on to PeekYou (and what could possibly be in my background check), I decided to focus on the policies of these five sites—I found these policies to be overwhelming similar.
I then wrote a survey on the website SurveyMonkey of 29 yes/no, fill-in, and multiple-choice questions, designed to be easily and quickly completed. Questions were divided to address four issues: demographics, knowledge and awareness, descriptive activity, and normative opinions. 173 responses were collected and I then underwent simple statistical analysis on Excel to identify possible correlations as well as discrepancies with the relevant privacy policies.
The results confirmed that we have very different assumptions about websites than their privacy policies stipulate and, overall the project provides a basis to begin answering the broader question of how we can engineer norms, laws, and code to make the architecture of the Internet fit our descriptive and normative desires, and not the other way around.
Happy holidays! -Carla
Some of the readings for the search and seizure cases were rather dense, so I made some animations to get across the major points quickly and memorably. I’ve completed “overviews” for two cases so far and hope to get more in before the final deadline.
Link to YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/searchplusseizure?feature=watch
Cases:
-Will Pitler
(Updated 12/17/2011)
Hey Guys!
Check out this link to our final project! It’s centered around the continually changing nature of YouTube fame and its real-life consequences. This project is meant to explore ’heap paradoxes’ like those we discussed in class and the inapplicability of binaries we used to describe fame before the Internet.
We tried to choose videos for our project that show something non-existent in traditional media and therefore unique to online video. Dramatic vlogs, ridiculous online-series, independent musicians and unintentional home videos number among the examples we selected. These videos show that online fame, notoriety, obscurity or any mix of the above is much different than anything we’ve encountered before.
Beyond the changing nature of fame we also wanted to investigate the perspectives that YouTube viewers hold of the content they are watching . We especially wanted to probe into the importance of reality and authenticity to viewers. Our perceptions of authenticity and in-authenticity have become skewed to the point that we pay homage to actors presenting a personality and yet we often ignore the real life consequences that online attacks have on real people. We seem to entertain the notion that much of what we see on YouTube is real, but oftentimes success seems to be either strongly tied to well-performed personas (inauthentic) or correlated with attacks on real-life individuals who end up as victims in the end. Of course there are counter examples, but we think this is a strong trend in viral video.
Anyways, we hope you all enjoy the video!
Make sure to share this with all your family and friends 
Happy Holidays!
YouTube’s 15 Minutes of Fame
Josh Eisenstat
Ted Papalexopoulos
Colby Brown
David Meierfrankenfeld
People are getting smarter about their privacy online. By now we all (hopefully) know to restrict our profiles so that only friends can see our personal information. But after 3, 4, 5+ years of social networking, how many people still know ALL of their Facebook friends? For our final project, we set out to design a fun, interactive website that would work to remind Facebook users of their overly extended networks.
Playing WhatsHerFace-book.com
After launching this weekend, we’ve seen over 700 users (Mostly college age students) tag 35,000 friends, and it turns out that the average player only knew 70% of their Facebook friends presented. Now, of course, the term “average user” is very skewed given our user base. Facebook reports that the average user has 130 friends, while our average player has boasted a whopping 880.
We argue that anything under 100% recognition of your “friends” should raise some privacy red flags. Every one of your friends can share your information with third-party apps (in fact it’s this that allows our app to function); we are able to pull all of your friends photos, without their permission–that is, unless they’re smart about their privacy settings. Even if you can’t bring yourself to defriend a long-lost acquaintance, at the very least you should consider creating managed friends lists with restricted privacy settings.
Results from a round of WhatsHerFace
We also hope to remind people to consider their audience when sharing content. “Friends of Friends” is never a good idea. For the average Facebook user, that’s 17 thousand people you don’t know, and why would they need to see your information anyways? Entire networks are generally a bad idea as well. You have no idea how large those networks can be, and with companies asking alums to Facebook stalk you on their behalf, does all of Yale really need to see you with your solo cups?
You probably think you know all your friends. Maybe you even pruned the list recently. But you had names and faces, and it’s so much easier to identify someone with a name. Try out whatsherface-book.com and you’ll understand just what we mean when whatsherface from freshmen year comes up and you’re forced to think, “Who the hell is that?”
Charlie Croom
Bay Gross
Hey Guys!
As part of our group project on creating awareness to stop the upcoming SOPA bill from passing, we just wanted to let you know that Charlie, Zach and Nick will be live-blogging the bill’s markup in Congress tomorrow. The session starts at 10:00 am, but we’ll get started at around 9:30, so check in early for insightful coverage and our witty banter.
The link to our blog is here.
The Makerbot Thing-O-Matic (Attribution: Makerbot on Flikr)
I finally posted my 10th thing to Thingiverse! The road has been fun and the interactions I had with the community were better than I expected!
The idea of my final project was to ask friends and classmates for ideas for physical objects that they would like to have that could be 3D printed on the Makerbot. I designed them on an educational version of Solidworks, printed them out on my Makerbot Thing-O-Matic 3D printer and gave them to the people who requested them. I also uploaded the designs onto Thingiverse (an online site maintained by Makerbot Industries to facilitate sharing designs of physical objects with other users) which made them available to anyone else who wanted to use or improve them. I released all of my designs under an Attribution – Non-Commercial – Share Alike license. This project explored first hand the collaboration and network effects that we had been talking about in class. It allowed me to get some really neat ideas into people’s hands and onto the web community so others could benefit from the designs.
If you don’t know, the Thing-O-Matic is an open source, open hardware 3D printer developed by Makerbot Industries. The Thing-O-Matic is capable of making 3D parts out of ABS thermoplastic within a build envelope of approximately 4″ x 4″ x 4″. For those of you who didn’t get the chance to see my presentation in class, here is a time-lapse video of the device’s construction and the device printing out a toy bell.
Each design started out as an idea or suggestion. Many times I found designs online that served as a good starting point and I worked from there. When I had decided on a plan, I designed the object in Solidworks, a 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD) software package. Solidworks is a parametric feature-based modeling tool, where 2D sketches are extruded or cut to create 3D objects. Here is a quick run-through for creating a simple square cutout on the program:
Step 1 - Draw a 2D Sketch and Add Dimensions
Step 2 - Extrude Features
Step 3 - Create 3D Body
Step 4 - Draw Another 2D Sketch for New Features and Add Dimensions
Step 5 - Cut Features
Step 6 - Finished Model
Step 7 - Scale, Rotate, and Adjust before exporting to the Makerbot
Step 8 - Commence Creation!
Step 9 - Let Cool and Remove Print
With a lot of sketching, extruding and cutting (and a few other tricks) you can make any 3D object you can think of – when it comes to a generative hardware technology unconstrained by the vendor, this is where it is happening!
Did the project work out as well as I hoped? It sure did! All in all, I have nearly 100 combined “likes” (to date) from other Thingiverse users on the things I designed, which ranged from medical devices to toy planes. One of my designs was featured on Thingiverse, having caught the eye of an administrator as a particularly good design. I even had other users printing out my designs (and taking pictures of them to show off!).
So, you may ask, what did I end up designing? Here is a run-through of the 10 “things” that I made.
_ _ _ _
Thing 1: X-Acto Knife/Hex Wrench Holder
**Featured**
Likes: 7
Thing 1 - A Thing for Tools
This thing was an integrated tool holder that attached to a pre-existing part on the Makerbot. It was something I had been thinking about for a while and wanted to make, and it served as a nice upgrade to my printer. Another user thought so too -
“Nice. I had been thinking about some kind of clip or mount for the wrench for some time.” – DigitalBytes, Okotoks, Canada
This design was featured the next day, having caught the eye of a Thingiverse Admin. For my first “thing”, it was such an exhilarating feeling to have been featured. In retrospect, this may very well have been by design (maybe all first time posts get featured?). In any event, it accomplished the goal of getting me excited to contribute more.
_ _ _ _
Thing 2: Parametric Radial Ornament
Likes: 8
Thing 2 - A Thing for a Tree
This thing was an ornament, which played with the printer’s ability to create enclosed negative space. I was asked to design an ornament by a friend and I was inspired by the tear-drop shaped ornaments and a whisk.
_ _ _ _
Thing 3: Decorative Coat Hook
Likes: 11
Thing 3 - A Thing for a Coat
This thing was a coat hook for a friend who had run out of her 3M hooks and wanted something a little more aesthetically pleasing. I designed it to accept adhesive backing as well as a nail, for some flexibility in mounting.
What was exciting about this design was that another user MacGyver in Salt Lake City, UT liked the design and printed one out for himself! He commented:
“I’ve been looking for just this thing for awhile now. Thanks for the upload!” – MacGyver, Salt Lake City, UT
He also posted a picture of the design. This was electronic transmission of hardware! Talk about COOL!
A Copy of Thing 3 Printed by MacGyver
_ _ _ _
Thing 4: Recycled Bottle Coat Hanger
Likes: 38
Thing 4 - A Thing for a Closet
This thing was an attempt to do some recycling while designing and was requested by a friend who is very environmentally conscious. I was inspired to create this design from a similar product by Chinese designer Xuan Yu. I thought this was a great way to recycle 2 bottles while utilizing the printer’s capabilities. Here is an image of the print before I cleaned off the support material and assembled it.
Thing 4 with Support Material
This was the most “liked” design that I put together and the comments were so encouraging –
“This idea is amazingly clever! What a wonderful way to combine a 3D printer and recycling bottles to make a useful product. ” – PolygonPusher, Sweden
“What a brilliant idea!!” – Rasle500, Denmark
“This is genius !” – mrule, Providence, RI
I didn’t really expect to get such good feelings from sharing my designs with the community, but here I was, excited to post more!
_ _ _ _
Thing 5: Glasses and Cleaning Cloth Moustache Stand
Likes: 7
Thing 5 - A Thing for a Pair of Glasses
This thing was suggested to keep a pair of glasses safe and cleaning cloth handy. It a “moustache stand” – a play on a design my girlfriend found here. The Makerbot is capable of printing out in different colors (depending on what color raw material you have). I had a spool of black ABS and I thought it would work well with the design.
_ _ _ _
Thing 6: Arrow Bookend
Likes: 4
Thing 6 - A Thing for Books
This thing was requested and designed using inspiration from a similar bookend.
At this point, I was really getting into the groove of cranking a couple of designs out a day! It was really fun watching my designs and waiting for comments, “likes”, and printed copies by others!
_ _ _ _
Thing 7: Plantar Fasciitis Pain Reduction Apparatus
Likes: 4
Thing 7 - A Thing for Pain Reduction
Illustration of Using Thing 7
This thing was suggested to me by a Physical Therapist who sufferers from pain due to Plantar Fasciitis to help alleviate discomfort. It was a resting splint for sleeping or relaxing (not walking) designed to apply tension on the ball of the foot. This was an improvement over current devices that put tension on the toe using a tight fitting sock, which causes discomfort to the toe. The printed component allows the foot to be supported with the commercially available straps.
_ _ _ _
Thing 8: Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel Toy Model
Likes: 7
Thing 8 - A Thing for Fun
The Sentinel (Thing 8's Inspiration) ©TruthDowser / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 & GFDL
This thing was suggested to me by an engineer and enthusiast. It is a miniature mockup of the Sentinel stealth drone (also known as the Beast of Kandahar) developed by Lockheed Martin.
I thought I would have a little fun with the caption too, given recent events in relation to this story.
“Iran got an early Christmas present… So can you!”
_ _ _ _
Thing 9: Photo Keychain
Likes: 2
Thing 9 - A Thing for a Photo
This thing was the only design that featured two separate interlocking parts. A suggestion came along for a photo frame keychain for backpack or purse. One could place a photo within (1″x1.5″ size) along with a 1″x1.5″x.25″ piece of plexiglass and snap/glue the pieces together to create the keychain.
Thing 9 Separated
_ _ _ _
Thing 10: Watch Stand
Likes: 14
Thing 10 - A Thing for a Watch
This thing was modeled after those watch stands they have in stores for holding watches up in display cabinets. A friend wanted one so that they could hold their watch up to the light to charge their solar watch during the wintertime.
_ _ _ _
I want to thank everyone who contributed ideas and helped me make this final project possible!
If you would like to check out my things on thingiverse, visit Indigojin.
Happy Holidays everyone!
I couldn't resist! (Design by tc_fea)
Hi all,
My final project has to do with gauging online privacy expectations. If you could take this 3 minute survey I would really appreciate it!! Thank you!
-Carla
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