Scholars at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society are constantly quoted in news stories about technology. This week the center itself is the story, after a controversial report in the online publication The Daily Beast questioned its financial ties to leading tech companies. And the center’s co-founder has responded.
The chief target of the article, “Harvard vs. Steve Jobs,” was Jonathan Zittrain (pictured at left), a law professor, Berkman Center co-founder, and former guest contributor to this blog. Describing Mr. Zittrain as “an influential critic of Apple,” author Emily Brill alleged that the Internet scholar and his research center were insufficiently transparent about financial and personal ties to Apple’s competitors. Ms. Brill’s background added an unusual twist: She acknowledges having been rejected for a job at Berkman.
Ms. Brill’s takedown of a net guru—Webheads affectionately call Mr. Zittrain “JZ”—sent some of the geek elite into a tizzy. At Fortune, Philip Elmer-DeWitt dismissed Ms. Brill as a “publishing heiress whose longest previous work was a yearlong blog called ‘Confessions of a 5th Avenue Misfit.’” Siva Vaidhyanathan, an associate professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia, fired off a tweet asking “Is Emily Brill of @thedailybeast the dumbest young reporter in America or just the sleaziest?” Michael Zimmer, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, wrote a blog post defending Mr. Zittrain. Larry D. Kramer, the dean of Stanford Law School, described part of the piece as “highly misleading.”
One thing that’s been missing from all this noise is Mr. Zittrain himself. In an e-mail to Wired Campus, the professor said he was “floored” by the “flat-out hit piece.” Mr. Zittrain argued that the Berkman Center “has full disclosure of its gifts and policies,” pointing to a Web page that lists the center’s corporate backers. He also rejected Ms. Brill’s argument that his work is anti-Apple.
“It’s not,” Mr. Zittrain said. “I’ve used the iPhone—and the Kindle, and the Google Books project—as examples of a move to non-generative systems,” meaning systems that aren’t conducive to user innovation, “even as I also praise each. (I own both an iPhone and a Kindle!)” He added, “Each of these, and the other platforms like them, could be made more generative in ways that I discuss at length in my scholarship, without my worry or the solutions striking at the core identity of one company or another.”
8 Responses to Harvard Tech Guru Responds to Conflict-of-Interest Accusations
princeton67 - July 9, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Whew! talk about one-sided. This article quotes/mentions four ad hominem attackers of Ms. Brill (“publishing heiress”; “dumbest…or sleaziest”) plus Mr. Zittrain’s self-defense. Other than the title, not one word, not one detail, from either the Chronicle reporter or the detractors, of Ms. Brill’s three-page article, which details extensive emails, financial sources and amounts, and statements. I might agree with her conclusions, but, after reading the Limbaughian/Beckian invective above, I applaud her.
paldy - July 9, 2010 at 5:10 pm
I’m no tech guru but I can see what is happening to society having watching things since using my first computer in 1976. Of late there is a phenomena that produces what I call “bloggie people”. It is getting into various parts of the culture. You especially see it in politics, religion, and – journalism (reference the media professors comment). People are calling each other names, being cute with their phraseology as if that creates substance, making implications and innuendos which create false images and getting down right nasty, all of it with out substantial content. They believe their assumptions as if they were profound truth and that becomes the content. It closes off any chance for listening, hearing the other perceptions, or dialogue. I see Ms Brill started by creating an implication by the title and subheading. However, the responders are doing the same thing by impinging on her character and getting cute with the phraseology. So where are we? Nowhere.It is not helping society a bit. We as a society need to learn how to better handle the instant communication tools God has given us – or we invented (pick your belief and go with it).
luigi - July 10, 2010 at 11:34 am
The article does contain a link to Brill’s story. If you read it, you will discover that it is hardly investigative journalism. If you want to trash someone, you owe it to that person to back up your allegations with a tad more hard evidence, not just breezy innuendo.
sivavaid - July 11, 2010 at 9:07 am
Dear Marc,Thank you for doing this. The first commenter is right, however. I wish you had chosen to use more than Twitter to guage the criticism of Brill’s embarrasing lack of journalistic skill and ethics. You could have invoked actual arguments against Brill’s hit piece.For instance, I wish you had used Stanford Law Dean Larry Kramer’s statement:”To say that Professor Zittrain’s class at Stanford was funded by a ‘special grant’ from Microsoft is highly misleading. The class was an experimental and unusual arrangement that involved bringing Harvard students to Stanford for a special three-week joint class. It was arranged long before the grant from Microsoft was even in the works. The grant, in turn, was secured with room for discretionary uses and with no mention of the Zittrain class. We subsequently decided that we could use some of these resources to fund Zittrain’s class, which was within its general terms. But while we did, as a courtesy, let Microsoft know later that we had used a portion of their grant for this purpose, we did not seek their permission. Nor did we inform either Professor Zittrain or the class of the source of funding, as it was irrelevant under the circumstances. Dinners for the three weeks were catered because to fit the course into this short time frame required meeting for many hours each evening, including through the dinner hours.”http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2010/7/6/4572222.htmlThis is a serious thing: A reporter with no journalistic training and a major grudge against a great professor engages in shallow character assasination by insinuating his institution fails to disclose supporters.Her evidence of the list of supporters? The very institution she accuses of lack of disclosure. I can’t believe that anyone who reads the article closely can take this article seriously. My comments below the original Daily Beast story explain why: How does Brill know Berkman’s corporate sponsors: it DISCLOSED the list, as it always does.Does Brill offer any evidence that Zittrain benefited financially from such support? Of course she does not.Does Brill offer any evidence of an unusual or untoward relationship between Berkman and any of these companies? Stanford and these companies? Zittrain and these companies? No, she does not.The Berkman Center has always disclosed its sponsors and does so for every event. That’s how Brill knows the list.How can disclosure be mislabeled as “lack of disclosure?”That JZ himself did not speak to Brill about it is pretty trivial. Most of us do not publicly disclose consulting contracts or personal relationships. Universities usually demand disclosure to the universities themselves. But why is it important that he never talked to Brill?The article opens with a claim of “financial and personal ties,” yet only lists personal ties — and those are trivial at best. It offers no evidence that any Berkman fellow, faculty, or staff has ever profited personally from contracts with any of the companies mentioned.It’s completely unreasonable for JZ or anyone else to open a speech with “by the way, the following companies have supported the research institution with which I am affiliated.”Does Stanford Law School take money from high tech companies? Oh, stop the presses. Does Stanford Law School offer delicious catered food at events? In my experience, yes it does.If Brill had any evidence that JZ had cashed checks from Microsoft or Google, that would be one thing. If she had any evidence that JZ had bent his conclusions to support Microsoft or Google, that would be relevant as well. She offers nothing but a delicious buffet.Besides, the very idea that JZ’s work has EVER benefited Microsoft is just plain crazy. Brill must not have read much his work.However, the interesting story is the extent to which Google has been influenced at every level by JZ’s work — not the other way around.I work for a university that takes lots of money from lots of people. I can’t be expected to hand out a list every time I speak. Neither can JZ. In general, I find quoting Tweets the be the very paradigm of “out of context” quotation. All the people you quoted from Twitter are easy to contact for further elaboration and explanation. You should probably challenge us to defend our own shallow accusations. You were not fair to Brill, me, or your readers.
hoorayator - July 11, 2010 at 9:37 pm
From Late Nite to Presidential Debates (and technology invented to follow it) people want zingers. By the time the Correction piece shows three days later the deed is done. We create this world so we must like it that way.
dierdre58 - July 12, 2010 at 9:08 am
Hooray for Emily. it takes courage to take on an idol, which is what Prof. Zittrain has become. The Berkman Center exists to put its (Google’s) thumb on the scale of debate over what the internet should be. Once they enter a debate all oxygen is sucked out of the forum. Trying to hold a rational discussion with any of them is impossible: they simply pile on with the quasi-religious rolling offense and woe betide anyone who gets in the way. And then they have the arrogance to roll their eyes in contempt of the poor schmuck they mercilessly crushed. I admire Ms Brill for having the courage to take on Zittrain and co. and if she gets some of that courage from her background and connections, so what?
11159995 - July 12, 2010 at 10:18 am
I can make no statement about Ms. Brill’s article or her claims, but I can testify that the Berkman Center seems uninterested in having any debate over the positions it takes. When I tried, repeatedly, to engage the Center in discussion of a white paper it issued a few years ago about copyright and fair use titled “The Digital Learning Challenge,” on behalf of the Association of American Universitry Presses of which I was then president-elect, I was met with total silence. Not a single e-mail I sent was ever even so much as acknowledged with a response. Is this the way a presumably educational institution is supposed to operate? — Sandy Thatcher
parrymarc - July 12, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Siva,I’m sorry you felt the blog post was unfair, but I think your criticism is also a bit unfair. I did use more than Twitter to guage the reaction, which you’ll see by following the links in this blog post. One of them is to the Stanford dean’s statement — the one you say you wish I included. In fact, yours was the only tweet I quoted, and I included it because it showed the intensity of feelings stirred up by Brill’s article. Thanks for following up and posting your full reaction. My blog post is a short item intended to aggregate the discussion about something many people were talking about. It’s definitely a topic that merits a much deeper look. I welcome any other thoughts you have about angles worth exploring in the future.Best,Marc Parry