Berkman Klein Center For Internet And Society: Audio Fishbowl

The January 4, 2018 release of the Federal Communications Commission’s "Restoring Internet Freedom Order" marked the most recent turn of events in the longstanding and ever-changing debate over net neutrality. In this lively debate, Christopher S. Yoo (Founding Director of the Center for Technology, Innovation and Competition at the University of Pennsylvania) and Matt Wood (Policy Director of Free Press) explore the consequences of this action, including the implications of the Order, the outcome of the judicial challenge, and the possibility of legislative reform. More info on this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/01/NetNeutrality

After a photographer left his camera equipment out for a group of wild macaques to explore, the monkeys took a series of photos, including selfies. Once the photos were posted publicly, legal disputes arose around who should own the copyrights — the human photographer who engineered the situation, or the macaques who snapped the photos. This unique case raises the increasingly pertinent question as to whether non-humans — whether they be monkeys or artificial intelligence machines — can claim copyrights to their creations. Jon Lovvorn, Lecturer on Law and the Policy Director of Harvard Law School's Animal Law & Policy Program, hosts a discussion panel featuring Jeff Kerr, the General Counsel of PETA, which sued on behalf of the monkey, and experts on copyright, cyber law, and intermediary liability issues, as well as Tiffany C. Li of Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, and Christopher T. Bavitz and Kendra Albert of Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic. More info on this event here: https://cyber

In this talk, Orly Lobel—award-winning author of Talent Wants to be Free and the Don Weckstein Professor of Law at the University of San Diego—delves into the legal disputes between toy powerhouses to expose the ways IP is used as a sledgehammer in today’s innovation battles. More info on this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/01/Lobel

Can diversity and free expression co-exist on our campuses? How about in our town squares, our cities, and our world? In this talk, John Palfrey — Head of School at Phillips Academy, Andover, and author of the new book "Safe Spaces, Braves Spaces" — leads a discussion of two of the foundational values of our democracy in the digital age. Learn more about this event, and watch the video here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2017/10/Palfrey

Since the rise of the web in the 1990s, technological skeptics have always faced resistance. To question the virtue and righteousness of tech, and especially computing, was seen as truculence, ignorance, or luddism. But today, the real downsides of tech, from fake news to data breaches to AI-operated courtrooms to energy-sucking bitcoin mines, have become both undeniable and somewhat obvious in retrospect. In light of this new technological realism, perhaps there is appetite for new ways to think about and plan for the future of technology, which anticipates what might go right and wrong once unproven tech mainstreams quickly. In this conversation, author and an award-winning game designer Dr. Ian Bogost considers a technology that has not yet mainstreamed—autonomous vehicles—as a test case on how we should think about the future of tech. More info on this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2017/luncheon/12/Bogost

Black users have consistently been at the vanguard of digital and social media use, pioneering and anticipating digital trends including live tweeting and the podcast boom. As harassment on social media platforms becomes increasingly aggressive, and increasingly automated, users must develop strategies for navigating this hostility. Having long endured coordinated campaigns of harassment, Black users are again at the forefront of a shift in digital practices – the creation of digital enclaves. With new patterns of use, Sarah Florini — Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies, Department of English Arizona State University — explores emerging methodological and ethical questions regarding research in this space. For more info on this event visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2017/luncheon/12/Florini

Black women have historically occupied a unique position, existing in multiple worlds, manipulating multiple technologies, and maximizing their resources for survival in a system created to keep them from thriving. In this talk, University of Maryland Professor Catherine Knight Steele presents a case for the unique development of black women’s relationship with technology by analyzing historical texts that explore the creation of black womanhood in contrast to white womanhood and black manhood in early colonial and antebellum periods in the U.S. This study of Black feminist discourse online situates current practices in the context of historical use and mastery of communicative technology by the black community broadly and black women more specifically. By tracing the history of black feminist thinkers in relationship to technology we move from a deficiency model of black women’s use of technology to recognizing their digital skills and internet use as part of a long developed expertise. Find out more abo

eBay resolves 60 million disputes a year and Alibaba 100 million. How do they do that? At the other less impressive extreme, in 2015 the IRS hung up on telephone callers 8.8 million times without making contact. Are there online solutions for that? Disputes are a “growth industry” on the internet, an inevitable by-product of innovation but often harmful to individuals. Drawing on his recent book, Digital Justice: Technology and the Internet of Disputes, (co-authored with Orna Rabinovich), Professor Katsh considers opportunities for online dispute resolution and prevention in ecommerce, health care, social media, employment, and the courts. Find out more about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/node/100073

Caroline Weinberg — one of the co-chairs and organizers of the March for Science — discusses two broad questions: How is the Internet involved in the planning of large scale, high visibility political demonstrations? And, how can we harness the potential of demonstrations to build into movements? For more information on this event visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2017/luncheon/10/Weinberg

Information communication technologies and the data they produce are transforming how natural and manmade disasters alike unfold. These technologies are also affecting how populations behave and organizations respond when these events occur. In this talk, Nathaniel Raymond — founding Director of the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) of the Harvard Chan School of Public Health — addresses the ethical, legal and technical implications of this pivotal moment in the history of humanitarianism. For more information on this event visit: http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2017/luncheon/10/Raymond

Social and communication theorists Nick Couldry and Andreas Hepp draw on their recent book "The Mediated Construction of Reality" (Polity 2016) to explore what happens to the concept and practice of 'social order' in the era of datafication. Today we are living in an era not just of mediatization, but deep mediatization where every element of social process and social life is composed of elements that have already been mediated. This shifts the question of media's 'influence' on the social into a higher-dimensional problem. Datafication is a good example of this, and its tension with classical forms of social phenomenology will be discussed in detail in the talk. Developing particularly the social theory of Norbert Elias (and his concept of 'figuration'), Couldry and Hepp explore how social theory can help us grasp the deep conflicts that exist today between our material systems of interdependence (particularly those focussed on information technology and data processing systems) and the normative principles

Katherine Maher, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, joins Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler for a conversation about the future of Wikipedia and global crowdsourced knowledge. Find out more about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2017/luncheon/10/Maher

How do we prepare court systems, judges, lawyers, and defendants to interact with autonomous systems? What are the potential societal costs to human autonomy, dignity, and due process from the use of these systems in our judicial systems? Harvard Law School Clinical Professor and Director of the Cyberlaw Clinic Chris Bavitz, along with Harvard's Cynthia Dwork, Christopher L. Griffin, Margo I. Seltzer, and Jonathan L. Zittrain, discuss the evolution of artificial intelligence, with an emphasis on ethics, governance, and criminal and social justice. Drawing from the research, community building, and educational efforts undertaken as part of our Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence initiative, leading experts in the field share and reflect on insights from ongoing activities related to the judiciary and fairness. Find out more about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2017/10/hubweek

Did fake news save Kenya from an Internet shutdown? Kenya held general elections on August 8, 2017. The presidential election was nullified due to irregularities and is set for a repeat on October 26, 2017. Technology played a key role in the polls at two levels - there was use of tech in aspects such as results transmission and social media was employed massively in political campaigns with propaganda and fake news flowing freely. The talk explores emerging trends in use of technology in elections and their effect on Internet freedom and what to expect as Kenya gears up for repeat elections. About Grace Grace was a 2016/17 OTF Information Controls Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center studying freedom online during election periods in East Africa. She analysed freedom online in the Uganda elections of 2016 and is part of an election observer mission in Kenya's 2017 elections. Grace is also an advocate of the High Court of Kenya and an associate at the Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) where she carries ou

The Internet has been billed as the great equalizer, breaking down barriers and increasing access to information and ideas. At the same time, it has allowed for the proliferation of abuse online – whether in the form of hate, harassment or offensive content. The freedom to express oneself is an important principle, but should it persist unfettered? How and where should we draw the line, and who – or what – should play a role in moderating online debate? Monika Bickert, Facebook’s Head of Global Policy Management, and Jonathan Zittrain, Faculty Director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and Harvard professor, discuss online abuse and the role that technology can play in addressing it. For more on this event, including video, visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2017/luncheon/09/Bickert

Berkman Klein Center Faculty Chair Jonathan Zittrain discusses the development of the Internet — from its earliest stages to its present manifestations — as a technology for good or harm, depending on the human forces that wield it. Find out more about this event, and the Berkman Klein Center, here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2017/luncheon/09/Zittrain

Join Jonny Sun, the author of the popular Twitter account @jonnysun, for a conversation in celebration of his new book “everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too” by jomny sun (the aliebn). This debut illustrated book is the unforgettable story of a lost, lonely, and confused alien finding friendship, acceptance, and love among the creatures of Earth. Constructed from many of Jonny’s re-contextualized tweets, the book is also a creative thesis on the narrative formats of social media, and a defense of the humanity-fulfilling aspects of social media born out of his experiences on Twitter. About Jonny Jonathan Sun is the author behind @jonnysun. When he isn’t tweeting, he is an architect, designer, engineer, artist, playwright and comedy writer. His work across multiple disciplines broadly addresses narratives of human experience. As a playwright, Jonathan’s work has been performed at the Yale School of Drama, and in Toronto at Hart House Theater and Factory Theater. As an artist and illustrator, his work has

More than two million students are enrolled in for-profit colleges, from the small family-run operations to the behemoths brandished on billboards, subway ads, and late-night commercials. These schools have been around just as long as their bucolic not-for-profit counterparts, yet shockingly little is known about why they have expanded so rapidly in recent years—during the so-called Wall Street era of for-profit colleges. In Lower Ed Tressie McMillan Cottom—a bold and rising public scholar, herself once a recruiter at two for-profit colleges—expertly parses the fraught dynamics of this big-money industry to show precisely how it is part and parcel of the growing inequality plaguing the country today. McMillan Cottom discloses the shrewd recruitment and marketing strategies that these schools deploy and explains how, despite the well-documented predatory practices of some and the campus closings of others, ending for-profit colleges won’t end the vulnerabilities that made them the fastest growing sector of hi

Can we talk? The question (a favorite prompt of the late comedian Joan Rivers) evokes a feeling of being intimately and sometimes uncomfortably open, frank, and honest, both with others and ourselves. This event, a conversation between Prof. Elizabeth Ellcessor (Indiana University) and Prof. Meryl Alper (Northeastern University, Berkman Klein Center​), points the question at the topic of disability, technology, and inclusion in public and private, and in digital and digitally-mediated spaces. Ryan Budish (Berkman Klein Center) and Dylan Mulvin (Microsoft Research) will serve as discussants. Can we talk?, with respect to different degrees of potential access (in its social, cultural, and political forms) that new media constrains and affords for individuals with disabilities. Can we talk?, with respect to who does and does not take part in the ongoing research, development, and critique of accessible communication technologies. Can we talk?, with respect to whether or not talking, or its corollary "voice," is

US market regulators offer perspectives on the benefits and risks of the financial technology revolution from distributed ledgers, p2p marketplaces and the use of AI in the financial system. Moderated by Patrick Murck -- Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society -- the panel discusses the challenge of regulating through disruption and how federal agencies can modernize their approach to keep up with innovation. John Schindler is an Economist for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Jeffrey Bandman is the FinTech Advisor at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Valerie A. Szczepanik is an Assistant Director in the Asset Management Unit of the Division of Enforcement at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). More info on this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2017/luncheon/05/Fintech