Social Implications of Computing

CS 195, Fall 2016

Topics, Assignments, and Readings

For many of the linked readings you need to have your UC Berkeley library proxy server enabled on your web browser, or install the Berkeley VPN on your computer (better privacy).

8/24 Free Speech (Webcast)

Optional reading: How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet

Extra Bonus Optional Reading: Clint and Scott Eastwood: No Holds Barred in Their First Interview Together

8/31 Privacy

Please complete the Privacy Survey before class.

Miller, "Addicted to Apps"

Popken, "Sites Spying on You in Weird New Ways, Princeton Study Exposes"

Powazek, "I'm Not The Product, But I Play One On The Internet"

Rachels, "Why Privacy Is Important" (optional, but interesting)

9/7 Copyright and Patents

Please complete the Copyright and Patents Survey before class

Note on readings for this week: This topic is highly complex and we'd really need a few weeks to get up to speed. I've provided a perhaps too-thorough set of readings on the topic that exceed the expected 1.5 hrs/wk workload. Read what feels most interesting.

Cardenas, "Patent vs. Copyright Protection for Computer Software" (very short, read first)

Stallman, "Misinterpreting Copyright"

Stallman, "The Dangers of Software Patents" (or watch Video)

Heckel, "Debunking the Software Patent Myths" (pro-patent piece)

Mullin, ""Your criticisms are completely wrong": Stallman on software patents, 20 years in" (meta-piece on Richard Stallman)

9/14 Government Censorship and Surveillance

Please complete the Government Censorship and Surveillance Survey before class, ideally before 2 PM.

Foreign Governments (three short readings):

Vara, "The World Cracks Down on the Internet"
Xuecun, "Scaling China's Great Firewall"
Nisbet and Mikati, "Russians don't trust the Internet - and it's making the country worse"

United States Government (four short readings):

Optional extra readings/watching:

Der Spiegel, "Inside TAO: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit"
Snowden, "I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things"

9/21 Jobs

CGP Grey, "Humans Need Not Apply"

Bernstein, Raman "The Great Decoupling: An Interview with Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee"

Consequentialism (two short readings):

"Philosophy - Ethics: Consequentialism"
"The Status of Moral Emotions in Consequentialist Moral Reasoning" - pages 1-7 only
For even more, see Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy or The University of Tenneesse's Encyclopedia of Philosophy. These are not required readings and are fairly technical, dense reads.

Pew Center, "AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs (page one, optional)"

9/28 Politics and Media

Please complete the Politics and Media Survey before class, ideally before 2 PM.

Elections (video):

Center, Carr, Finn, Volpe "Is Social Media Ruining Politics (excerpts) (25 minutes)"

Political Polarization:

Alexander, "The Toxoplasma of Rage"

Political Action (two short readings, one long one):

Wasik, "Gladwell vs. Shirky: A Year Later, Scoring the Debate Over Social-Media Revolutions"
Gladwell, "Small Change": (long)
Tufekci, "After the Protests"

Optional Political Polarization Reading:

Garrett, Resnick "Resisting Political Fragmentation on the Internet"

Optional Political Action Readings:

Shirky, "The Political Power of Social Media": Introductory Paragraph, "The Theater of Collapse", and "The Convervative Dilemma"
Tufekci, "Social movements and govenrments in the digital age: Evaluating a complex landscape"

Note: For lack of time, we will not discuss the social implications of computing on the process of governance, e.g. "How Sandy Changed Social Media Strategies in New York City".