Berkman Klein Center For Internet And Society: Audio Fishbowl

Berkman Klein Faculty Associate, Zeynep Tufekci joins us to talk about her new book, Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. To understand a thwarted Turkish coup, an anti–Wall Street encampment, and a packed Tahrir Square, we must first comprehend the power and the weaknesses of using new technologies to mobilize large numbers of people. An incisive observer, writer, and participant in today’s social movements, Zeynep Tufekci explains in this accessible and compelling book the nuanced trajectories of modern protests—how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change. Tufekci speaks from direct experience, combining on-the-ground interviews with insightful analysis. She describes how the internet helped the Zapatista uprisings in Mexico, the necessity of remote Twitter users to organize medical supplies during Arab Spring, the refusal to use bullhorns in the Occupy Movement that started in N

What are the rights of the worker in a society that seems to privilege technological innovation over equality and privacy? How does the law protect worker privacy and dignity given technological advancements that allow for greater surveillance of workers? What can we expect for the future of work; should privacy be treated as merely an economic good that could be exchanged for the benefit of employment? In this talk Berkman Klein fellow Ifeoma Ajunwa looks at how the law and private firms respond to job applicants or employees perceived as “risky,” and the organizational behavior in pursuit of risk reduction by private firms, as well as ethical issues arising from how firms off-set risk to employees. For more info on this event, visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2017/luncheon/05/Ajunwa

Nighat Dad discusses the state of freedom of expression, privacy, and online harassment in the global south, with a particular focus on Pakistan, where she is based. Dad is the Executive Director of the Digital Rights Foundation (DRF), a nonprofit that seeks to protect the freedom and security of all people online, with a particular focus on women and human rights defenders. In late 2016, DRF launched a cyber harassment hotline, and Dad will present key findings from a recently released report [LINK: http://digitalrightsfoundation.pk/cyber-harassment-helpline-completes-its-four-months-of-operations/] on the first four months of its operation. The report affords up-to-the-moment insights on significant challenges facing internet users in Pakistan and throughout the region. About Nighat Nighat Dad is the Executive Director of Digital Rights Foundation, Pakistan. She is an accomplished lawyer and a human rights activist. Nighat is one of the pioneers who have been campaigning around access to open internet i

Deemed the modern equivalent of building roads or railways, connecting every person and business to high-speed internet is on the minds of policymakers, advocates, and industry players. Under the leadership of Mr. Jean-Pierre Blais, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (“CRTC”) ruled in December 2016 that broadband internet access is a basic and vital service, thus ensuring that broadband internet joins the ranks of local phone service. The CRTC’s announced reforms will impact over 2 million Canadian households, especially those in remote and isolated areas. The policy aims to ensure that internet download speeds of 50mbps and upload speeds of 10mbps are available to 90% of Canadian homes and business by 2021. Join the Berkman Klein Center and the HLS Canadian Law Student Association as Mr. Blais speaks about broadband, internet, and the future of connectivity in Canada and around the world. About Jean-Pierre Blais Before joining the CRTC, Mr. Blais was Assistant Secretary of t

The concept of criminal rehabilitation in the digital age is intriguing. How can we ensure proper reintegration into society of individuals with a criminal history that was expunged by the state when their wrongdoings remain widely available through commercial vendors (data brokers) and online sources like mugshot websites, legal research websites, social media platforms, and media archives? What are constitutional and pragmatic challenges to ensure digital rehabilitation? Is there a viable solution to solve this conundrum? About Eldar Eldar Haber is an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) at the Faculty of Law, Haifa University and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. He earned his Ph.D. from Tel-Aviv University and completed his postdoctoral studies as a fellow at the Berkman-Klein Center. His main research interests consist of various facets of law and technology including cyber law, intellectual property law (focusing mainly on copyright), privac

UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, David Kaye, is joined in conversation by Nani Jansen Reventlow, a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center and Adviser to the Cyberlaw Clinic, about his upcoming thematic report on digital access and human rights, as well as the most burning issues regarding free speech online and digital rights including encryption, fake news, online gender-based abuse and the global epidemic of internet censorship. More on this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2017/04/DavidKaye

The law is arguably the least innovative profession in the country. Huge sectors of the economy -- health care, banking, the arts -- face constant churn and upheaval. Law schools steadily march along with a 150-year old approach to legal education, a 50-year old approach to law firm structure, and a stubborn fealty to the billable hour. Huge portions of American society are served badly by the legal profession while the legal establishment does precious little to address the problem. Technology has systematically brought great change to almost every profession - even taxi driving - so the question is when, not if, the law will be roiled by true disruption. Join two HLS graduates who are on the forefront of answering these questions for a provocative and challenging discussion. For more about this event, visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2016/11/Goyle_Shahdadi

It is important to examine the digital manifestations of misogynoir – or what it means to be a Woman of Color existing in the hegemonic spaces of digital technology. But our conceptual frameworks fail to capture the everyday practices that Women of Color exhibit online. In this talk Kishonna L. Gray discusses the frameworks of Black Digital Feminism, useful to not only examine how structures influence practices, but also tools that have been implemented to resist such hegemony. For more about this event, visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2017/01/Gray

The Data for Justice project is an initiative that aims to make (open) data actionable empowering lawyers, advocates, community organizers, journalists, activists and the general public by developing the tools and frameworks that digest complex databases without losing sight of the ultimate goal: to tell a story that can effect social change and justice. This project is the product of the work of Paola Villarreal, a Berkman Klein Center Fellow as a Data Scientist at the ACLU of Massachusetts and as a 2015 Ford and Mozilla Foundations Open Web Fellow. For more about this event, visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2016/11/Villarreal

In this talk Aaronson discusses how the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) governs information flows, how its rules could affect internet governance, digital rights, and the open internet, and how to better link policies to promote digital trade with policies to advance digital rights. Aaronson also discusses the rise in digital protectionism and its troubling potential costs to innovation, human rights, and governance. For more about this event, visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2016/10/Aaronson

In 2016, more than a dozen hospitals and healthcare organizations were targeted by ransomware attacks that temporarily blocked crucial access to patient records and hospital systems until administrators agreed to make ransom payments to the perpetrators. Emerging online threats such as ransomware are forcing hospitals and healthcare providers to revisit and re-evaluate the existing patient data protection standards, codified in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that have dictated most healthcare security measures for more than two decades. This talk looks at how hospitals are grappling with these new security threats, as well as the ways that the focus on HIPAA compliance has, at times, made it challenging for these institutions to adapt to an emerging threat landscape. About Dr. Wolff Josephine Wolff is an assistant professor in the Public Policy department at RIT and a member of the extended faculty of the Computing Security department. She is a faculty associate at the Harvard Berk

Please join us for a discussion with Nani Jansen Reventlow, Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and Associate Tenant at Doughty Street Chambers, on the topic of regional courts in Africa and freedom of expression cases in particular. As the head of the Media Legal Defence Initiative’s global litigation practice, Reventlow led litigation that resulted in the first freedom of expression judgments at the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the East African Court of Justice. She has also led cases before the European Court of Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Committee, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and several African regional courts. For more about this event, visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2016/11/Jansen%20Reventlow

Recent shifts in technology, intellectual property and contract law, and marketplace behavior threaten to undermine the system of personal property that has structured our relationships with the objects we own for centuries. Ownership entails the rights to use, modify, lend, resell, and repair. But across a range of industries and products, manufacturers and retailers have deployed strategies that erode these basic expectations of ownership. Understanding these various tactics, how they depart from the traditional property paradigm, and why some have been embraced by consumers are all crucial in developing strategies to restore ownership in the digital economy. For more about this event, visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2016/11/Perzanowski

This event is co-sponsored by the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. This talk addresses a range of issues relating to digital incivility with en emphasis on cyber-violence. What are the most common negative behaviors online? How are these perceived and experienced by users? What is cyber-violence? Who does it target? What steps can be taken to prevent such behaviors? How should they be addressed once they've occurred? What challenges does the legal system face when dealing with cyber-violence related offenses? Professor Carrillo draws from the Cyber-Violence Project he co-directs at GW Law School to offer responses to these and related questions. About Arturo Arturo J. Carrillo is Professor of Law, Director of the International Human Rights Clinic, and Co-Director of the Global Internet Freedom & Human Rights Project at The George Washington University Law School. Before joining the faculty, Professor Carrillo served as the

Outgoing Chair of the Federal Communications Commission Tom Wheeler speaks with Harvard Law School Professor Susan Crawford about his work at the FCC, and where telecommunications might go under the next administration. For more about this event, visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2017/01/Wheeler

In 2013, Elon Musk proposed an "open source transportation concept" of levitating vehicles zooming passengers through vacuum tubes at 760 miles an hour. It would be weatherproof, energy-efficient, relatively inexpensive, have autonomous controls.Its impact on urban and inter-city transport could reshape economies and families. Since Musk's proposal, a company in Los Angeles, Hyperloop One, has secured 160 million in financing, hired 220 employees, and began engineering and testing to make the hyperloop concept a reality. But engineers aren't the company's only inventors. A hyperloop transport system is so different from an airplane, train, or bus that a new legal regime is necessary. Lawyers and government officials in the US, Dubai, and elsewhere have been working on creating a new framework that could govern the deployment of hyperloop systems. Hyperloop One General Counsel Marvin Ammori will discuss the challenges and opportunities for crafting this new legal framework. For more about this event, visi

The question is whether we can observe the emergence of a new constitutional right of the Internet, a right that does not only protect individuals in their communication online but a right protecting also the Internet as an institution. What would be the forum where such a process of constitutionalization is taking place? Can fundamental rights also emerge bottom-up, from civil society rather than from a formally legitimized constitution maker? For more about this event, visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2017/02/Graber

Eric Osiakwan is an Entrepreneur and Investor with 15 years of ICT industry leadership across Africa and the world. He has worked in 32 African countries setting up ISPs, ISPAs, IXPs and high-tech startups. Some of these companies and organizations are Angel Africa, Angel Fair Africa , Ghana Cyber City, PenPlusBytes, African Elections Portal, FOSSFA, WABco, GISPA, AfrISPA, GNVC, Internet Research, InHand, Ghana Connect. He serves on the board of Farmerline, Forhey, Teranga Solutions, Siqueries, Amp.it, SameLogic, eCampus, Bisa App and Wanjo Foods, - some of which are his investments. He was part of the team that built the TEAMS submarine cable in East Africa and an ICT Consultant for the WorldBank, Soros Foundations, UNDP, USAID, USDoJ, USDoS as well as African governments and private firms. He authored "The KINGS of Africa Digital Economy", co-authored the “Open Access Model”, “Negotiating the Net” – the politics of Internet Diffusion in Africa and “The Internet in Ghana” with the Mosaic Group. He was inv

With digitization and simultaneous democratization of the global information landscape, plus declining trust in media and health institutions, misinformation is pervasive. Audiences are forming homophilic social networks, reinforcing opportunities for selecting information that conforms to pre-existing beliefs, a phenomenon known as the creation of echo chambers. Echo chambers are not only problematic when misinformation reinforces certain beliefs, but they also make it difficult to disseminate evidence-based information broadly. In order to understand how public health echo chambers manifest themselves online, we used the Media Cloud suite of tools, an open access global archive of 5+ billion sentences from a set of 25,000 online information sources to conduct three mass media case studies on Ebola, Zika, and Vaccination. Our findings show that public health information networks are largely unsuccessful in driving an evidence-based information network narrative around any of our case study topics. Based on

Those responsible for technical design of the Internet are essential among the policy-makers for this large-scale sociotechnical infrastructure. Based on analysis of the RFCs (1969-1999), this talk looks at how these policy-makers thought and think about policy issues while addressing technical problems. Findings include basic design criteria that serve as constitutional principles; interactions between human and non-human users; tensions between geo- and network-political citizenship; early internationalization; and what Internet designers can teach us about decision-making under conditions of instability in everything from the design subject on. For more about this event, visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2017/02/Braman