Slushpile Links: Google Transparency, Army on Flickr, Parents and Teens Online

Hi folks -- here are a few things from my slushpile links -- the pile of bloggy stuff that I may or may not get around to writing about:

* Google Public Policy Blog: Google just opened up their formerly-private public policy blog (including exposing the entries they've posted since they started it in April).

It's for discussion, rumination and debate on topics like privacy, safety, copyright, network neutrality -- serious topics that really affect people.

This is what "transparency" is -- and if you can get the lawyers and policy types to sign off and participate in a meaningful way, that's a big win.

We're working on a few things to help our own transparency over here, though I don't think it's going to make BoingBoing (which is where this link is via).

* Soldiers Media Center on Flickr: This here is a user account on photo sharing site Flickr -- it appears to be one of the efforts of the Army's Soldiers Media Center to get their message out using social media and other online community tools.

One of the criticisms of the U.S. military (it came up several times in the milblogging conference I went to last month) is that insurgent forces seem to be a lot faster and better at using the Internet to get their message out (since they don't have to do things like operational security reviews, etc), so this seems to be part of their effort to spread their message. [link via TotalFark -- the subscription version of Fark.]

* From Here to CyberSpace: BBC contributor Bill Thompson raises a point -- sure we know that teens may be reluctant to let their parents see their MySpace profile and network of friends, but how about the other way around? What if the teen can see who their parents are hanging out with on Facebook (and get up all in their parent's bidness)?

The article also takes a look at a bunch of social profile and social media Web sites, and some of the differences and different audiences they appeal to (for example, MySpace skews younger, Facebook older).

* Other Stuff: There are also links to stories about crowdsourcing, cease-and-desist orders, a online defamation lawsuit (and another one), and citizen journalism in Korea -- I'm not sure if I'll be revisiting these topics, but there they are.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: slushpile, social media, transparency, milblogging, soldiers media center, social networking