Berkman Klein Center For Internet And Society: Audio Fishbowl

Is social media destroying democracy? Are Russian propaganda or "Fake news" entrepreneurs on Facebook undermining our sense of a shared reality? A conventional wisdom has emerged since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 that new technologies and their manipulation by foreign actors played a decisive role in his victory and are responsible for the sense of a "post-truth" moment in which disinformation and propaganda thrives. Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one year anniversary of the Trump presidency. Analyzing millions of news stories together with Twitter and Facebook shares, broadcast television and YouTube, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of contemporary American political communications. Through data analysis and detailed qualitative case studies of coverage of immigration, Clinton scandals, and

Bruce Schneier, the author of Click Here to Kill Everybody in conversation with Abby Everett Jaques, MIT. From the description of "Click Here to Kill Everybody": Computer security is no longer about data; it's about life and property. This change makes an enormous difference, and will shake up our industry in many ways. First, data authentication and integrity will become more important than confidentiality. And second, our largely regulation-free Internet will become a thing of the past. Soon we will no longer have a choice between government regulation and no government regulation. Our choice is between smart government regulation and stupid government regulation. Given this future, it's vital that we look back at what we've learned from past attempts to secure these systems, and forward at what technologies, laws, regulations, economic incentives, and social norms we need to secure them in the future. More info on this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018-09-25/click-here-kill-everybody

Drawing from memes, magazine covers and legal documents from the past 60 years, Jonathan Zittrain gives a lively overview of the Internet since its inception, spanning the debates, concerns, and hopes in the years since, and how the Berkman Klein Center fits into—and contributes to—these conversations. More info on this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018-09-18/platforms-politics-and-power

Narrative manipulation issues - such as manufactured consensus, brigading, harassment, information laundering, fake accounts, news voids, and more - are increasingly well-documented problems affecting the entire social ecosystem.This has had negative consequences for information integrity, and for trust. In this talk Renee DiResta (Director of Research at New Knowledge, and Head of Policy at nonprofit Data for Democracy) examines the ways that these same manipulative tactics are being deployed on Amazon, which is now the dominant product search engine and a battlefield for economically and ideologically motivated actors. For more info on this event visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/05/DiResta

Computational creativity—a subdomain of artificial intelligence concerned with systems that replicate or assist human creative endeavors—has been the  subject of academic inquiry for decades. Now, with recent improvements in machine learning techniques and the rising popularity of all things AI, computational creativity is a medium for critically and commercially successful works of art. From a 2016 Rembrandt to Jukedeck’s instant music (or muzak?), AI-assisted and AI-driven works are a reality. This raises mind-bending questions about the nature of creativity, the relationship between the artist and the viewer, even the existence of free will. For many lawyers, it also raises a more immediate question: who owns all of this art? Cyberlaw Clinicians Jess Fjeld and Mason Kortz discuss copyright in AI-generated works, the need for a shared understanding of what is and isn’t up for grabs in a license, and how forward-thinking contracts can prevent AI developers and artists from having their rights decided by our

Harvard Law School is one of the top law schools in the world and educates the intellectual and financial elites. Lawyers are held to the highest professional and ethical standards. And yet, when it comes to digital piracy, they overwhelmingly perceive file sharing as an acceptable social practice – as long as individuals do not derive monetary benefits from it. So should digital files be considered a commons? In this talk, Dariusz and Jerome identify and discuss the social and economic contexts in which file sharing is considered more or less acceptable by law practitioners. In the process, they foster a conversation on the possible changes in regulation that would allow us to catch up with the established social norm. Learn more about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/05/Jemielniak_Herguex

Founding members of the CryptoKitties team, Dieter Shirley and Alex Shih, discuss the unique governance, legal, and regulatory challenges of putting cats on the Ethereum blockchain. CryptoKitties is an early pioneer in the space, and, having navigated securities law early on in its release, will share unique insights on classifications. They also discuss some of the more ethical challenges they've been facing, and best practices for approach. Learn more about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/05/CryptoKitties

Professor Lawrence Lessig is joined by Professors Ruth L. Okediji, Laura DeNardis, and Jonathan Zittrain to reflect on the 20th anniversary of Professor Lessig's foundational paper "The Laws of Cyberspace," and how the landscape of Internet law has changed in the two decades since. Learn more about this event: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/04/Lessig

Social scientists, computer scientists, historians, lawyers, political scientists, architects, and philosophers share some short glimpses into how we can better incorporate social responsibility and ethics into the development of new technology. More info about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/04/ethicaltech

Blockchain technology is ultimately a dual-edge technology that can be used to either support or supplant the law. This talk looks at the impact of blockchain technology of a variety of fields (finance, contracts, organizations, etc.), and the benefits and drawbacks of blockchain-based systems. Learn more about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/04/DeFilippi

Again and again there have been attempts to police music; to restrict borrowing and cultural cross-fertilization. But music builds on itself. To those who think that mash-ups and sampling started with YouTube or the DJ’s turntables, it might be shocking to find that musicians have been borrowing — extensively borrowing — from each other since music began. Then why try to stop that process? The reasons varied. Philosophy, religion, politics, race — again and again, race — and law. And because music affects us so deeply, those struggles were passionate ones. They still are. Professors James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins (Duke Law School) discuss Theft! A History of Music, their graphic novel about musical borrowing. Learn more about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/04/Boyle

“Cheap speech” has massively increased ordinary people’s access to mass communications — both for good and for ill. How has the system of remedies for defamatory, privacy-invading, and harassing speech reacted? Some ways are predictable; some are surprising; some are shocking. Prof. Eugene Volokh (UCLA) lays it all out. Learn more about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/04/Volokh

Who controls how one's identity is used by others? This legal question, centuries old, demands greater scrutiny in the Internet Age. Jennifer Rothman uses the right of publicity — a little-known law, often wielded by celebrities — to answer that question not just for the famous, but for everyone. For more on this event visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/04/Rothman

The online world is no longer a distinct world. It is an extension of our social, economic, and political lives. Internet access, however, is still often considered a luxury good in the United States. Millions of Americans have been priced out of, or entirely excluded from, the reach of modern internet networks. Maria Smith, an affiliate of Berkman Klein and the Cyberlaw Clinic, created a four-part documentary series to highlight these stark divides in connectivity, from Appalachia to San Francisco, and to uncover the complex web of political and economic forces behind them. Learn more about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/03/Smith

Algorithms for predicting recidivism are commonly used to assess a criminal defendant’s likelihood of committing a crime. Proponents of these systems argue that big data and advanced machine learning make these analyses more accurate and less biased than humans. In this talk researcher Julia Dressel discusses a recent study demonstrating that the widely used commercial risk assessment software COMPAS is no more accurate or fair than predictions made by people with little or no criminal justice expertise. Learn more about this event here: http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/03/Dressel

The Global Lives Project presents 24-hour-long videos of daily lives of individuals from around the world both online and through in-person exhibits. This 15-year project is an online and real-world collaboration between thousands of filmmakers, photographers, translators and everyday people from around the world. The project's latest exhibit, Lives in Transit, showcases unedited footage of the daily lives of transportation workers from around the world, including Vietnam, Nepal, Turkey, China, India, South Korea, Colombia, Spain and Canada Global Lives Project Founder David Evan Harris speaks about the evolution of the project, and its ambitious goal of connecting the diverse experiences of humanity around the globe, and building empathy. For more information on this event visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/02/GlobalLivesProject

METRO/599 is a studio in Hell’s Kitchen that connects more than 250 of New York’s libraries, archives, and knowledge organizations. With 6,000 square feet of event and studio space, supporting projects in digital privacy, multimedia media archiving, metadata aggregation, and podcasting, and offering tools for everything from software preservation to signage prototyping to spaghetti and meatball crafting, METRO/599 is reinventing the multi-type library consortium as a metacommunity center. In this talk, Nate Hill, Executive Director of the Metropolitan New York Library Council, gives an overview of the programs at METRO/599, talks about the challenges associated with this organizational recalibration, seeks input and ideas from the group, and extends an invitation to attendees to come take part in the fun. For more information visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/02/Hill

Health spending continues to outpace wages and GDP, while some new insurance designs transfer greater shares of that to patients’ own out of pocket costs. In this talk co-hosted with the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, Dr. John Freedman, President & CEO of Freedman HealthCare discusses what is driving health care costs up, who is benefiting, and how data is harnessed to study problems and remedy them. More info on this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/02/Freedman

What is the role of libraries in a technological society? A group of librarians, technologists, journalists, and researchers, including new DPLA executive director John Bracken, come together to reflect on the Digital Public Library of America’s past, present and future, and explore the way in which libraries can contribute to a stronger civic life in the midst of disruptive times. Read more here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/node/100128 Learn more about the Digital Public Library of America: http://dp.la

In this talk, Berkman Klein affiliate Jonas Kaiser shares some of his research on the networked public sphere. "The right-wing is rising. Not only in the United States but also in Germany and other European countries. And the internet helped," he writes. "Right-wing actors are active all over the internet, adapt to platforms, game the system, blur the lines between off- and online, and create their own virtual spaces. In addition, social media platforms like YouTube contribute involuntarily to the right-wing's reach and, perhaps, influence with their algorithms." In this talk Kaiser will explore these issues and potential ways forward. More info on this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/01/Kaiser