This book talk features Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, a co-author of the recently published book Framers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil. The book explores how reframing some of the world's most challenging problems, particularly when it comes to technology, can create new opportunities and better outcomes for humans to not just su…

The global information economy has provided freedom-enhancing affordances for previously marginalized groups, but has also enabled extractive practices in the form of digital imperialism, or as others term it, data colonialism. For so-called “periphery” countries such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, the information economy represents an opportunity…

Even before the storming of the US Capitol, mistrust in institutions like the press and the federal government was challenging the civic fabric of America. In Ethan Zuckerman's new book, "Mistrust", he explores the deep roots of this mistrustful moment and examines ways individuals can make social change whether or not they have faith in institutio…

Governments around the world failed to contain COVID-19, with more than 3.2 million deaths and counting. Even before the pandemic, the United States was questioning its commitments to global health, its leadership role, and a system of progressive prices for medicines whereby the rich pay more to subsidize access for the poor. The pandemic is far f…

Can humanitarian actors play a more intentional role in designing just and equitable digital futures? Could we, in fact, design worlds that don't imagine some figures, particularly populations that we serve in the global south, to merely be passive beneficiaries and outside of the borders of expertise we seek? Instead of looking at digital governan…

The past few years have highlighted the range of problems that social media seems to amplify: harassment, hate speech, hoaxes, violent extremism, and more. Through traditional governing and research spaces (i.e., governments, academia, NGOs, and corporations), the default response is a focus on content moderation. However, this talk by Sahar Massac…

What would the Internet look like if it was designed by sex workers? Taking a sex worker lens to tech ethics envisions a radically different online space. Sex workers hold unique insights into the real world impacts of platform capitalism, carceral politics, digital surveillance, and sexual gentrification. Yet sex workers face significant structura…

In the first pandemic of the datafied society, the disempowered were denied a voice in the heavily quantified mainstream narrative. Diego Cerna Aragón, Shyam Krishna, Silvia Masiero, Stefania Milan, Irene Poetranto, and Emiliano Treré invited participants to explore the pandemic from the perspective of communities and individuals at the margins in …

Since the federal stimulus bill has been signed, one of our nation’s major goals is to safely and rapidly reopen schools using funds allocated to State Departments of Education. This session focuses on some of the more complicated response measures necessary to make schools COVID-safe environments as they reopen: improving indoor ventilation and ai…

We are still in the early days of the Internet, but there is a growing sense that it's creating more problems than it’s solving. This wasn’t always the case. There was a time when we shared an overriding optimism in the Internet's capacity to make the world a better place.Creator platforms and social media platforms saw us migrate our social lives …

Hannane Ferdjani, Nana Mgbechikwere Nwachukwu, and Dr. Allissa Richardson explore how young Black people around the world are utilizing tech tools to track and circumvent oppressive policies by repressive governments. The conversation includes how Black people of Nigeria, Uganda, and the United States are leveraging social media platforms such as Y…

People who have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease, or have become infected with it, need to quarantine or isolate from others so that they don’t spread the disease to others. However, staying away from others for weeks at a time is difficult for many people. This seminar addresses how US state and local public healt…

Dr. Margaret Bourdeaux, Professor Jonathan Zittrain, and Dr. Vanessa Kerry discuss vaccine roll-out and the impact of new COVID strains from both a domestic and global perspective.Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

Increasingly, marginalized women are opting against calling the police in response to intimate partner violence (IPV). Many report going to faith communities and online platforms to seek help — especially since COVID-19 policies were implemented. This event brings together practitioners and experts in law, psychology, technology, religion, communic…

Dr. Apryl A. Williams and Dr. Allissa V. Richardson address the long-standing history of White vigilante-style surveillance of Black people in public spaces, exploring the role of White women in extending the power of the state to surveil and regulate the movement of Black people in public – tying in Karen actors with historical examples such as Em…

Jonathan Zittrain delivers part one of the 2020 Clare Hall Tanner Lectures on Human Values – Between Suffocation and Abdication: Three Eras of Governing Digital Platforms, exploring the tension between free speech and public health online, and the three eras of Internet governance.Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

Dr. Margaret Bourdeaux and Professor Jonathan Zittrain, co-chairs of the Berkman Klein Center’s Digital Pandemic Response Working Group, reflect on 2020 and look ahead to 2021. Bourdeaux and Zittrain are joined by Renée DiResta, technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory, to discuss vaccine disinformation that has been proliferatin…