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Welcome to the 38th episode of “The Mediatwits,” the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift’s Mark Glaser and Jillian York, who is filling in for Rafat Ali. First, we get a special on-the-ground report from special guest Mohamed El Dahshan in Tunisia, talking about a ruling expected from the country’s Supreme Court about filtering the Internet. Mohamed also talks about how freedom of speech online briefly flourished in Tunisia and Egypt before being reined in. We also talked about the case of Hamza Kashgari, who could get executed in Saudi Arabia because of three tweets he wrote directed to the prophet Mohammed.
Next up was a discussion about Pinterest, the visual social networking site that has become a hit among people who like to do scrapbooks and bookmarking online. Special guest Courtney Lowery Cowgill, who wrote a popular story about Pinterest, tries to explain what makes the site so addictive — and whether they can figure out a business model for it. Finally, we discuss recent moves by Apple responding to investigative reports about appalling conditions at its factories in China. The tech giant hired a labor monitoring group to do inspections at its Chinese factories, but will Apple take action or is this just whitewashing the problem?
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Intro and outro music by 3 Feet Up; mid-podcast music by Autumn Eyes via Mevio’s Music Alley.
Here are some highlighted topics from the show:
Intro
1:00: Jillian York explains the Berkman Center at Harvard
2:20: Rundown of topics for the podcast
Online report from Tunisia
5:00: Morrocans, Syrians arrested for online speech
6:20: Special guest Mohamed El Dahshan
8:40: Filtering problem not a big issue in the general public
12:00: El Dahshan: The witch-hunt for Saudi man who tweeted about Mohammed is embarrassing
Pinterest craze
17:00: Website has great visual appeal
17:30: Special guest Courtney Lowery Cowgill
19:30: Million-dollar question: How will Pinterest make money?
21:30: Cowgill: Pinterest offers a visual way to shop around
24:10: Pinterest is what you make it
Apple monitors Chinese factories
25:10: Will Fair Labor Association do a good job monitoring factories?
28:10: How much follow-up with Apple do?
39:20: Hundreds of thousands of people signed a petition to get Apple’s attention
More Reading
Tunisia: Trial Over Censorship of Pornographic Websites in Tunisia Postponed at AllAfrica
Why a Saudi blogger faces a possible death sentence for three tweets at Christian Science Monitor
We’re all Americans now at Foreign Policy
Pinterest’s Rite of Web Passage—Huge Traffic, No Revenue at WSJ
Pinterest: Why What It’s Not Says So Much at PBS MediaShift
Pinterest should file for an IPO at Fortune
Why Pinterest Is So Addictive at Fast Company
When is the social curation bubble going to burst? at GigaOm
Apple Asks Outside Group to Inspect Factories at NY Times Bits Blog
Apple’s external inspections of Foxconn a good first step at ZDNet
Apple joins industry-funded labor monitor for China factory audit at LA Times
Weekly Poll
Don’t forget to vote in our weekly poll, this time about Pinterest:
Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. and Circle him on Google+
