Radio Berkman

Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University•phobos.apple.com

Technology

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Stories from the Deep Internet

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Episodes

A spotlight on Nieman-Berkman Klein Fellow Jonathan Jackson

Jonathan Jackson is a co-founder of Blavity Inc., a technology and media company for black millennials. Blavity’s mission is to "economically and creatively support Black millennials across the African diaspora, so they can pursue the work they love, and change the world in the process." Blavity has grown immensely since their founding in 2014 — among other things, spawning five unique sites, reaching over 7 million visitors a month, and organizing a number of technology, activism, and entrepren...

Jan 11, 2019•23 min

A spotlight on 2018 Berkman Klein Fellow Amy Zhang

Berkman Klein Center interns sat down with 2018 Berkman Klein Center Fellow Amy Zhang, to discuss her work on combating online harassment and misinformation as well as her research as a Fellow.

Dec 07, 2018•19 min

How Youth Are Reinventing Instagram and Why Having Multiple Accounts Is Trending

According to a recent Pew Research Center study, Instagram is the second most popular platform among 13 to 17-year-olds in the US, after YouTube. Nearly 72 percent of US teenagers are on the image sharing platform. Our Youth & Media team looked at how teens are using Instagram to figure out who they are. While seemingly just a photo-sharing platform, users have molded Instagram into a more complex social media environment, with dynamics and a shared internal language almost as complex as a t...

Nov 02, 2018•13 min

When a Bot is the Judge

We encounter algorithms all the time. There are algorithms that can guess within a fraction of a percentage point whether you’ll like a certain movie on Netflix, a post on Facebook, or a link in a Google search. But Risk Assessment Tools now being adopted by criminal justice systems all across the country - from Arizona, to Kentucky, to Pennsylvania, to New Jersey - are made to guess whether you’re likely to flee the jurisdiction of your trial, or commit a crime again if you are released. With s...

Nov 29, 2017•33 min

Fake News & How To Stop It

Even before Election Day, 2016, observers of technology & journalism were delivering warnings about the spread of fake news. Headlines like “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump For President” and “Donald Trump Protestor Speaks Out, Was Paid $3500 To Protest” would pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, and spread like wildfire. Both of those headlines, and hundreds more like them, racked up millions of views and shares on social networks, gaining enough traction to earn mentions in t...

Dec 15, 2016•27 min

The Chilling Effect

The effects of surveillance on human behavior have long been discussed and documented in the real world. That nervous feeling you get when you notice a police officer or a security camera? The one that forces you to straighten up and be on your best behavior, even if you're doing nothing wrong? It's quite common. The sense of being monitored can cause you to quit engaging in activities that are perfectly legal, even desirable, too. It's a kind of "chilling effect." And it turns out it even happe...

May 18, 2016•12 min

Star Wars vs Copyright

"George Lucas built a whole new industry with Star Wars." says Peter S. Menell, devoted science fiction fan and a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law, who studies copyright and intellectual property law. "But what funds that remarkable company is their ways of using copyright." And he's right. A third of the profits LucasFilm pulls in from Star Wars has come from merchandising alone (http://www.forbes.com/sites/aswathdamodaran/2016/01/06/intergalactic-finance-how-much-is-the-star-wars-fra...

May 02, 2016•13 min

The Rise and Tumble of the Tumblr Teen

In her article "The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens," Elspeth Reeve tells the stories of some of Tumblr's most popular bloggers -kids who started their blogs in high school, made a ton of money and then inexplicably disappeared. In this episode we talk to Reeve about what she discovered when she went looking for these teens and what that can tell you about Tumblr and the teenage child stars of the Internet. Read Reeve's article here: https://newrepublic.com/article/129002/secret-lives-tumblr-teens ...

Mar 10, 2016•15 min

How Fair Use Works, in Six Minutes or Less

An artist, musician, or writer can’t just take another person's creation and claim it as their own. Federal law outlines how creators can and can’t borrow from each other. These rules are collectively called "copyright law," and essentially they give creators the exclusive right to copy, modify, distribute, perform, and display their creative works. Copyright law was originally created as an incentive. If creators aren’t worrying about whether someone might steal their work, they’re more likely ...

Feb 25, 2016•7 min

Radio Berkman: Urs Gasser

From February 4th, 2009 A first glimpse into the challenges and opportunities the Berkman Center faces in 2009, with the Center’s new Executive Director, Urs Gasser. CC-licensed music this week: Brad Sucks – “Gasoline” Greg Williams – “Teagarden Blues and Rain”

Feb 04, 2009•10 min

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