No, you may not, and that’s what I said on Leo Laporte’s terrific “This Week in Tech” online show last Sunday about why Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his recent $100 million donation to schools in Newark, New Jersey, on the same day as the splashy Hollywood movie–”The Social Network”–eviscerating him premiered.

Because the powerful television talk show host wanted him on that week, since she was focusing on education reform! And what Oprah Winfrey wants, Oprah Winfrey gets–which is pretty much my motto for life.

Bad timing? Good timing? Whatev–kids in need get a piece of the Silicon Valley wunderkind’s pile of moolah, so I am good with it no matter when Zuckerberg announced it.

Also joining Laporte as guests on the program were tech super-couple Veronica Belmont of Tekzilla and gdgt’s Ryan Block. The show is a lively one.

Topics included were: TechCrunch’s Angelgate (I really have to ignore this faux-controversy now), the alleged Facebook smartphone, China spying on Gmail, making room for new set-top boxes, Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt’s Bing FUD, Zynga’s Farmville panic, brodown throwdown and, of course, the Facebook Movie.

Here’s the full video:

The world of Facebook did not stop last Friday–although its unusual downtime was kind of spooky–when “The Social Network” made its debut in New York.

The much-anticipated movie opens wide this Friday for all to see what the hubbub is about.

And for everyone in Silicon Valley to debate, of course, grokking the film that looks askance at the origins of the powerful social networking site and especially its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

BoomTown will be doing so on Friday after a 2 pm screening sponsored by Eastwick Communications, which will be followed by a panel discussion titled: “Trust, Privacy, and Ethics in the Facebook Age.”

Panelists include M. Ryan Calo, director of the Consumer Privacy Project at Stanford Law School; Matt Cohler, one of Facebook’s earliest execs (where he remains a special advisor) and now a VC at Benchmark Capital; FutureWorks’ Brian Solis; and ReputationDefender CEO Michael Fertik.

It sounds very lofty, but I plan to be hopped up on Red Vines and Jujubes–so please send some suggestions for questions to ask the panel to @karaswisher on Twitter.

Until then, I leave you with this terrific picture below of Zuckerberg and Newark Mayor Cory Booker at a KIPP school there that was posted by Solis.

Frankly, I don’t give a fig about whether the timing of his $100 million donation to help reform education was or was not to burnish his image, after seeing the promise on the faces of these kids.

It is hopefully one of many more to come from the vast wealth Zuckerberg will have after Facebook goes public.

In fact, I’d like to know what the Winklevii did with their $65 million payout, other than flap their lantern jaws about how they needed more dough for creating exactly nothing.

Zuckerberg might deserve a lot of smacking around for serious issues related to how he runs Facebook now and in the future–and he surely is about to get a truckload related to the founding of the company.

But for the donation alone, let’s all try to drop our deep cynicism for just one moment–even as we all enjoy a movie at his expense too.

The question is: Which movie was Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinking about when he decided recently to fork over $100 million to public schools in Newark, New Jersey?

Was it a bid to spiff up his image–with a splashy announcement on Oprah Winfrey’s popular television talk show tomorrow?

That would be the very same day of the New York premiere of “The Social Network,” a movie that rakes the now-26-year-old Silicon Valley wunderkind over some very hot coals in the sordid tale of how he founded the powerful social networking site while at Harvard University.

Or was it actually the impact of another film, “Waiting for Superman,” a just-released gripping documentary about the crisis in public education?

It’s become a topic that has apparently become of great interest to Zuckerberg, as he has been considering his approach to big-time philanthropy in anticipation of huge wealth after Facebook eventually has its long-anticipated IPO.

In fact, said sources, the timing of the donation was hotly debated within the company, with worries that it would look like Zuckerberg was trying to counter the flood of negative press from “The Social Network.”

And for good reason.

After seeing a screening of the movie recently, MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka noted that “the film portrays him as an insecure jerk who screws over people and becomes a much-richer insecure jerk…He’s the bad guy in his own creation myth.”

In fact, said sources, Zuckerberg actually has been cooking up the deal since he and high-profile Newark Mayor Cory Booker started kibitzing over the idea while both attended the Allen & Co. conference in July.

From there, Zuckerberg decided it was best to flood the zone–in this case, the deeply troubled Newark school system, which had previously been taken over by the state.

Now, it will instead get a big dose of friending–um, funding–from a foundation that Zuckerberg is funding with $100 million worth of Facebook stock, which will be sold off in secondary markets as needed.

Sources said his interest in the area was apparently sparked by watching the up-and-down experience of his longtime girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, whose first job out of college was as a teacher. She is now a medical student.

It’s all an unusual bipartisan effort, with Zuckerberg working with the Democratic Booker and also New Jersey’s new Republican Governor Chris Christie.

The pair of politicians, who will formulate a plan, pushed for the announcement this particular week on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” in order to give the topic national attention.

Winfrey has been focusing on education reform this week on her show, and the Obama administration is reportedly going to do the same in the weeks ahead.

Thus, Zuckerberg himself decided to move forward now, sources said, apparently concluding that even if a prominent movie was portraying him as the villain, he did not have to act like one in real life.

Last week, BoomTown was in Washington, D.C., my old stomping grounds for 15 years, from attending Georgetown University as an undergraduate to covering the beginnings of the Internet at the Washington Post.

I miss a lot of things about living there, but most definitely not the poisonous political partisanship that you get sucked into from the minute you arrive.

Most recently, for example, it was ugly battles over financial reform, some tough remarks by President Barack Obama toward the GOP and–I swear–the “controversy” over some airbrushing of House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi on a magazine cover.

In other words, it does not take much for the denizens there to descend into the mud-slinging swamp the city was built on.

But it’s almost a relief to be in D.C. rather than in California, given how increasingly hostile the atmosphere is getting as a range of companies wrestle over a range of issues both key and trivial.

The hostilities especially center on the three main powers of Silicon Valley today: Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL) and Facebook.

And, specifically, the conflicts include Apple versus Google and Adobe (ADBE) and HTC and the First Amendment; Google versus Apple and Facebook and Microsoft (MSFT) and the Federal Trade Commission and–oh, yes–China; and Facebook versus Google and Twitter and anyone who gets in the way of its Manifest Destiny of Like-buttoning the Web.

Even Yahoo (YHOO) is entering the fray, with CEO Carol Bartz taking please-don’t-forget-us shots at Google and Facebook recently.

The Apple shooting match with Adobe over its Flash video technology is perhaps the most riveting, especially because it is the computer giant’s CEO, Steve Jobs, personally and relentlessly conducting the assault.

Jobs called Adobe technology shoddy, Adobe execs called Jobs controlling, the blogosphere erupted.

While issues around the use of Flash are a lot more complex, of course, they illustrate just how much the digital sector is at a critical inflection point.

That’s especially true as the game moves from the laptop/desktop, Web-centric world to one more social, mobile and focused on innovative new devices, such as smartphones and tablets.

This means the potential for a shift in power, obviously–which, in turn, means more wrangling among and between the digital powers-that-be.

It’s the top of mind as the next D: All Things Digital conference approaches in less than a month. In our eighth foray out, there have never been more overt power struggles among the various players who will be onstage.

Last year, in our opening essay for D7, titled “Welcome to Web 3.0,” we made a prediction.

“So what’s the seminal development that’s ushering in the era of Web 3.0? It’s the real arrival, after years of false predictions, of the thin client, running clean, simple software, against cloud-based data and services,” we wrote, specifically referencing the growing popularity of Apple’s iPod and iPhone as the harbingers of this important trend.

We continued: “But this is not just about one company, one platform or even one form factor. No, this new phenomenon is about handheld computers from many companies, with software platforms and distribution mechanisms tightly tied to cloud-based services, whether they are multi-player games, e-commerce offerings or corporate databases.”

Looking back over the last year, we think we got it pretty right, as companies of all kinds and in all arenas raced to be part of the social, mobile, cloud-centered action.

This fusion and, really, collision of key trends will be at the heart of what we’ll be focusing on at D8 as the major companies in tech and media try to figure out how consumers want to conduct their digital lives going forward and with what devices.

And inevitably, that has begun to cause some major rifts among and between the powers that be throughout tech and media. It’s clear to us that a major realignment of consumer expectations and desires is taking place, along with a fundamental shift in how we all relate to computing.

Still, with all the changes, it’s important to keep a respectful tone, which seems to have gotten a bit lost of late, especially now when every tiny shift and disagreement enters the digital echo chamber and quickly moves from loud to strident.

Such noise inevitably makes the whole competitive necessity of Silicon Valley–which is one of its greatest assets, of course–seem tinny and small, much like what you hear out of Washington all the time.

One of the reasons I moved out West was that it always seemed that–whatever the rivalry or wrangling–Silicon Valley was much better than that.

So even though healthy and robust competition is what makes it all work in tech, as Sergeant Esterhaus of “Hill Street Blues” used to say in the trademark phrase, which you can see in this video, “Let’s be careful out there”:

[T-shirt photo courtesy of Zazzle]

Last week, BoomTown was in Washington, D.C., my old stomping grounds for 15 years, from attending Georgetown University as an undergraduate to covering the beginnings of the Internet at the Washington Post.

I miss a lot of things about living there, but most definitely not the poisonous political partisanship that you get sucked into from the minute you arrive.

Most recently, for example, it was ugly battles over financial reform, some tough remarks by President Barack Obama toward the GOP and–I swear–the “controversy” over some airbrushing of House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi on a magazine cover.

In other words, it does not take much for the denizens there to descend into the mud-slinging swamp the city was built on.

But it’s almost a relief to be in D.C. rather than in California, given how increasingly hostile the atmosphere is getting as a range of companies wrestle over a range of issues both key and trivial.

The hostilities especially center on the three main powers of Silicon Valley today: Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL) and Facebook.

And, specifically, the conflicts include Apple versus Google and Adobe (ADBE) and HTC and the First Amendment; Google versus Apple and Facebook and Microsoft (MSFT) and the Federal Trade Commission and–oh, yes–China; and Facebook versus Google and Twitter and anyone who gets in the way of its Manifest Destiny of Like-buttoning the Web.

Even Yahoo (YHOO) is entering the fray, with CEO Carol Bartz taking please-don’t-forget-us shots at Google and Facebook recently.

The Apple shooting match with Adobe over its Flash video technology is perhaps the most riveting, especially because it is the computer giant’s CEO, Steve Jobs, personally and relentlessly conducting the assault.

Jobs called Adobe technology shoddy, Adobe execs called Jobs controlling, the blogosphere erupted.

While issues around the use of Flash are a lot more complex, of course, they illustrate just how much the digital sector is at a critical inflection point.

That’s especially true as the game moves from the laptop/desktop, Web-centric world to one more social, mobile and focused on innovative new devices, such as smartphones and tablets.

This means the potential for a shift in power, obviously–which, in turn, means more wrangling among and between the digital powers-that-be.

It’s the top of mind as the next D: All Things Digital conference approaches in less than a month. In our eighth foray out, there have never been more overt power struggles among the various players who will be onstage.

Last year, in our opening essay for D7, titled “Welcome to Web 3.0,” we made a prediction.

“So what’s the seminal development that’s ushering in the era of Web 3.0? It’s the real arrival, after years of false predictions, of the thin client, running clean, simple software, against cloud-based data and services,” we wrote, specifically referencing the growing popularity of Apple’s iPod and iPhone as the harbingers of this important trend.

We continued: “But this is not just about one company, one platform or even one form factor. No, this new phenomenon is about handheld computers from many companies, with software platforms and distribution mechanisms tightly tied to cloud-based services, whether they are multi-player games, e-commerce offerings or corporate databases.”

Looking back over the last year, we think we got it pretty right, as companies of all kinds and in all arenas raced to be part of the social, mobile, cloud-centered action.

This fusion and, really, collision of key trends will be at the heart of what we’ll be focusing on at D8 as the major companies in tech and media try to figure out how consumers want to conduct their digital lives going forward and with what devices.

And inevitably, that has begun to cause some major rifts among and between the powers that be throughout tech and media. It’s clear to us that a major realignment of consumer expectations and desires is taking place, along with a fundamental shift in how we all relate to computing.

Still, with all the changes, it’s important to keep a respectful tone, which seems to have gotten a bit lost of late, especially now when every tiny shift and disagreement enters the digital echo chamber and quickly moves from loud to strident.

Such noise inevitably makes the whole competitive necessity of Silicon Valley–which is one of its greatest assets, of course–seem tinny and small, much like what you hear out of Washington all the time.

One of the reasons I moved out West was that it always seemed that–whatever the rivalry or wrangling–Silicon Valley was much better than that.

So even though healthy and robust competition is what makes it all work in tech, as Sergeant Esterhaus of “Hill Street Blues” used to say in the trademark phrase, which you can see in this video, “Let’s be careful out there”:

[T-shirt photo courtesy of Zazzle]

One of the more remarked-upon talks at the recent TED conference was by Microsoft co-founder and mega-philanthropist Bill Gates.

Rather than talk about his work around AIDS and other global medical issues like malaria (last year he released a box full of mosquitoes at the conference to make a point), or education reform, he focused, surprisingly, on the future of energy and the need to reach zero carbon emissions by 2050.

In fact, the Microsoft (MSFT) leader said that if he had one planetary wish, this would be it. Well, also someday beating Google (GOOG) in search, but Gates managed to keep that to himself.

All kidding aside, it was a very interesting talk, and here is the video of the speech by Gates:

[Photo Credit: James Duncan Davidson for TED]

“We’re in this for the long haul. In the years to come, we’ll be making significant and growing investments in China. Our launch of google.cn, though filtered, is a necessary first step toward achieving a productive presence in a rapidly changing country that will be one of the world’s most important and dynamic for decades to come. To some people, a hard compromise may not feel as satisfying as a withdrawal on principle, but we believe it’s the best way to work toward the results we all desire.”

– Google Senior Policy Counsel Andrew McLaughlin, January 2006

Whether it’s an act of moral bravery or the first step in a commercial retreat it had been planning anyway, Google’s “new approach to China” isn’t going to fly with that country’s government. Beijing clearly has no intention of granting Google’s request to allow unfiltered Internet searches.

“We must make truly improving our capacity to guide opinion on the Internet a major measure for protecting Internet security,” Wang Chen, director of China’s State Council Information Office, said Wednesday. Our country is at a crucial stage of reform and development, and this is a period of marked social conflicts….Properly guiding Internet opinion is a major measure for protecting Internet information security. Internet media must always make nurturing positive, progressive mainstream opinion an important duty.”

And then there was this remark from foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, offered up a regular ministry briefing: “China’s Internet is open. China welcomes international Internet enterprises to conduct business in China according to law.”

Chen and Yu didn’t mention Google (GOOG) by name, but their messages were clearly intended for the search giant. China has laws restricting content and if Google refuses to abide by them, well, there will be “far-reaching consequences”–as the company’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, recently called them.

“Far-reaching consequences” not for China, but for Google, which may now be forced to shut down Google.cn and potentially the rest of its China operations as well, ceding its claim to the world’s largest Internet market to Chinese rival Baidu.

“The majority of all internet traffic is file sharing, which is why nothing other than the new IPRED law can explain this major drop in traffic,” Anti-piracy Agency lawyer Henrik Pontén told Metro. “This sends a very strong signal that the legislation works.” Christian Engstrom, vice chairman of the Pirate Party, a group seeking copyright law reform, agreed, but said the decline is likely to be only temporary. Once the public realizes that the odds of being busted for file-sharing are low, Internet traffic will return to normal levels again. “Today, there is a very drastic reduction in internet traffic,” Engstrom told The BBC. “But experience from other countries suggests that while file-sharing drops on the day a law is passed, it starts climbing again. One of the reasons is that it takes people a few weeks to figure out how to change their security settings so that can share files anonymously. We estimate there are two million file-sharing [computers] in Sweden, so even if they prosecuted a 1,000 people to make an example of them, for an individual user it is still a very small risk.”

[Image credit: Chart courtesy Royal Pingdom]