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Code and other Laws of Cyberspace. I203 Social and Organizational Issues of Information. Administrative. Class on Feb 26 th : Meet in Room 110 Mailing List! Reading Response Papers Thursday Office Hrs Coye and Judd: Thursdays 4-5:30 Coye: Tues 4-5:30 Judd: Wed 2-3 (PhD office). Topics.
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Code and other Laws of Cyberspace I203 Social and Organizational Issues of Information
Administrative • Class on Feb 26th: Meet in Room 110 • Mailing List! • Reading Response Papers Thursday • Office Hrs • Coye and Judd: Thursdays 4-5:30 • Coye: Tues 4-5:30 • Judd: Wed 2-3 (PhD office)
Topics • Agents/Bots/Foibles • Norms and Law • Privacy • Code as Law
Information Systems as Agents • Solving routine information processing • Ordering a pizza… • Finding information on a specific website… • Suggestions based on preference tracking (product brokering)…
Human versus Bot “foibles” • Human • Change our minds on the fly • Abandon “rules” when it might hinder progress or larger goals • Bots • Fairly blind to complex social trade-offs and competing goals • What is wrong with a price-maximizing and rational bot?
A new problem? • Bots and other software tools echo machines and industrialization in earlier eras. • Doing mundane tasks for humans (printing press, assembly line machines) • Representing humans (voicemail, junk mail) • So what is different, and why make such a big deal about it?
What is a ‘norm’? “Rules of conduct which specify appropriate behavior in a given range of social contexts” • Anthony Giddens 1997 • Folkways • Mores • Taboo • Law
How are ‘norms’ created and followed on the web? Norm development and time Negotiating norms between designers and users Norms and ‘Code’
Privacy in Social Science • Explored for decades from many different social theoretical perspectives • Erving Goffman: privacy is part of any ongoing social relationship where individuals are viewed as attempting to control perception. • Thus, ‘privacy’ is control over one’s persona • We could argue, then, that the current IT privacy debate is partially a reframing: • Privacy is control over one’s personal data
Broader concerns about Surveillance and Privacy in IT • Monitoring what you do now • Government (Carnivore, wiretapping) • Hackers/Identity Theft • Company Interests (P2P monitoring, corporate emails) • Finding out what you have done • Googlestalking • Electronic records • What are the implications of broadcasting and/or redistributing information that we find “publicly”?
IP and “power” in code • Lessig believes that many IP issues could be solved (or can only be solved) through the ‘code’ itself– not just law. Do you agree or disagree, and why? • Does the ‘code as law’ argument really reduce power? How does it relate to stratification (social hierarchies based on class, income, etc)?
Next Class: Group Discussion of Social Issues of ‘Web 2.0’ …and do not forget your Reading Response Papers!