In the opening to her book, How to Be A Woman Online, Surviving Abuse and Harassment and How to Fight Back , Nina Jankowicz crafts an allegory of a woman going about her day, encountering creepy and increasingly threatening men in public. It recounts a morning commute on a cloudless morning, but things quickly get dark. The woman endures various encounters: at a coffee shop, on the metro, ultimately at her office. It gets ugly. And yet the point of the story is, this kind of behavior is perpetua...
Apr 21, 2022•31 min
Privacy is one of the fundamental issues in tech policy. And yet, in the United States progress on this issue has been elusive at the federal level, even as Europe has forged ahead with its General Data Protection Regulation or (GDPR) and now the Digital Markets Act, which will reinforce the privacy protections afforded EU citizens under GPDR with new provisions. And yet there are bills before Congress that could change things in the U.S.- such as the Banning Surveillance Advertising Act, which ...
Apr 20, 2022•35 min
In this episode we hear an account of the prominent role that one Facebook executive has played in US and global politics, making many key decisions that, over the years, have literally been engineered into Facebook and its polices. Our guest is Benjamin Wofford, the author of a WIRED cover story titled The Infinite Reach of Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s Man in Washington: How one man came to rule political speech on Facebook, command one of the largest lobbies in DC, and guide Zuck through disaster—a...
Apr 17, 2022•57 min
Social media tools developed in Silicon Valley can be used for illiberal purposes, often putting the most vulnerable groups at risk. Afsaneh Rigot is a researcher and advocate concerned with issues of law, technology, LGBTQ, refugee and human rights. A senior researcher at ARTICLE 19 with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa, an Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center and an advisor at the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard, Afsaneh is the author of the recently published report, Digital Crime Scen...
Apr 12, 2022•25 min
It might appear that many political and government leaders have come to regard AI as a kind of panacea, right at the moment when the world needs one most. The third and final installment of the sixth UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report was published Monday: UN Secretary General António Guterres called the report "a litany of broken promises" and "a file of shame, cataloging the empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unlivable world." Some leaders appear to be bettin...
Apr 10, 2022•43 min
Last year, the Journal of Social Computing published a Special Issue on the subject of Technology Ethics in Action . The special issue was the product of the Ethical Tech Working Group at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard, which was cofounded by Mary Gray and Kathy Pham. The ideas in the special issue span a range of critical and interdisciplinary perspectives, with essay titles ranging from “Creating Technology Worthy of the Human Spirit” to “Connecting Race to Ethi...
Apr 07, 2022•30 min
Proponents and opponents of measures to reform Big Tech are busy this spring on Capitol Hill, and the fight over proposed antitrust regulation, in particular, is heating up in the US Capitol. In this episode we’ll hear two short interviews that provide a window into the effort to influence lawmakers. The first segment is with Drew Harwell , a technology reporter for The Washington Post who shared the byline on a story last week on a campaign by Meta, the company that operates Facebook and Instag...
Apr 05, 2022•30 min
If there is to be any accountability for Russian war crimes in Ukraine, it will requires carefully gathered evidence. The collection and preservation of digital media and other evidentiary material in Ukraine is a massive undertaking. It is being met by brave Ukrainian officials and local civil society groups operating in besieged cities and towns, as well as by an international coalition of human rights, open source intelligence and digital forensics researchers. This loose coalition is drawing...
Apr 03, 2022•46 min
Earlier this year, a nonprofit organization called the TechEquity Collaborative released the results of its Contract Worker Disparity Project , an investigation into the “shadow workforce” that powers many tech firms. The culmination of a year of research into the disparities in contract work, the report features survey data and first-hand accounts from contract workers in tech who describe range of challenging conditions and inequities, particularly relative to the lavish pay and perks that are...
Apr 01, 2022•32 min
Earlier this month in The Guardian newspaper, researcher and journalist Jane Lytvynenko wrote: I report on internet disinformation. When Russia invaded Ukraine, it became very personal. There is more than one struggle. There is the war of bombs, the war that’s taking lives. And then there’s the battle over what can be done. Jane, who is presently a Senior Research Fellow on the Tech and Social Change Project at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center, grew up in Kyiv. She moved to Canada at ...
Mar 29, 2022•34 min
Lawmakers around the world want to do something about social media, and in particular content moderation. But what if the interventions they are developing are based on a flawed conceptual framework about how content moderation works, or how it should work? This week I had a chance to talk to one of the smartest legal minds on questions related to content moderation to explore some fresh thinking on the subject: evelyn douek , a Doctoral Candidate at Harvard Law School and Senior Research Fellow...
Mar 27, 2022•46 min
The United States Congress has before it dozens of bills intended to rein in social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. This raft of proposed legislation is in response to various harms that have come to light over the past few years, including dangers to democracy, harassment and hate speech, concerns over safety (especially for children), and various ways the platforms reinforce inequities and permit discrimination. One agency in the federal government arguably h...
Mar 24, 2022•30 min
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, governments and tech companies have taken swift action to limit the flow of propaganda out of Russia, and Russia has in turn taken draconian measures to limit the flow of information into Russia, including banning some Western social media platforms, crushing what remained of independent journalism in the country and cracking down on free expression generally. How do these events fit in the broader scheme of things? The trajectory for global ...
Mar 20, 2022•41 min
Governments and tech platforms have moved quickly to take action against Russian state media since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. But what frameworks exist in international law that could inform our thinking about these complicated questions at the intersection of speech and human rights? To answer that question, I spoke to Vivek Krishnamurthy , the Samuelson-Glushko Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public In...
Mar 18, 2022•32 min
The past couple of months has seen controversies over misinformation, anti-vaccine and racist material, and how best to moderate content on online publishing platforms such as Spotify and Substack. To talk more about these issues of speech, editorial intervention, content moderation, and implications for democracy, I invited two expert commentators, Bridget Todd and Elizabeth Spiers, to the Tech Policy Press podcast. Bridget Todd is the creator and host of the award-winning technology and cultur...
Mar 17, 2022•33 min
Dr. Mary Anne Franks, Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair at the University of Miami School of Law, is an expert on the intersection of civil rights and technology. She is an Affiliated Faculty member of the University of Miami Department of Philosophy and an Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project, and author of an award-winning book, The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech from Stanford Press, published...
Mar 13, 2022•43 min
In this podcast, we’re going to listen in on a panel discussion hosted by the Stanford Cyber Policy Center on State Media, Social Media, and the Conflict in Ukraine. Convened by Nate Persily , Co-director of the Cyber Policy Center and James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, the panel considers the moves taken in recent days by governments and technology platforms, and the implications for the ways state-sponsored media and information will be regulated in the future. Guests ...
Mar 06, 2022•1 hr
Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, governments’ and private companies’ moves to limit or ban Russian state media have rapidly spread from the European Union, to the United States, South Africa, Australia and elsewhere. The cascade of developments harkens back to the World War II period, when governments regarded German propaganda as a weapon of war and used tools such as short wave radio to reach citizens behind enemy lines to penetrate the Axis power’s internal informatio...
Mar 05, 2022•44 min
Upstream from concerns about policy, we enter the realm of ethics- and that is the subject of today’s podcast. Our guest is Stephanie Hare , the author of Technology Is Not Neutral: A Short Guide to Technology Ethics , published on February 22nd in London Publishing Partnership’s Perspectives series. The book was edited by Diane Coyle. Stephanie Hare is a researcher and broadcaster with an expertise in technology, politics and history. As part of the BBC Expert Women programme, she often shares ...
Feb 27, 2022•42 min
In this special episode of the podcast, we’re going to consider questions related to disinformation and the information ecosystem, and the role of the tech platforms in this deadly moment. The first guest is Clint Watts , a national security contributor for NBC News and MSNBC and author of Messing With The Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians and Fake News. His research and writing focuses on terrorism, counterterrorism, social media influence and Russian dis...
Feb 26, 2022•42 min
Facebook vaunts its multibillion dollar investment in content moderation in advertisements and every time a senior executive is asked to address the problems of mis- and disinformation, hate speech, abuse, bigotry and other violations on its platforms. But what does that investment look like at the last mile? Who does the work? What are the conditions they face? Today we hear from Billy Perrigo, a journalist at Time magazine, who tells us of the plight of outsourced content moderation workers in...
Feb 20, 2022•30 min
When Peter Pomerantsev was working as a documentary producer in Russia, he observed how Vladimir Putin employed propaganda to spread such deep doubt and division that meaningful political debate became impossible. Since then, he has written two books on the subject– Nothing is True and Everything is Possible : The Surreal Heart of the New Russia , which chronicled Putin’s strategy and tactics; and This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality , which looked at similar phenomena e...
Feb 17, 2022•29 min
To discuss the Canadian trucker protests and the relationship between topics networked activism, social media manipulation, extremism and law enforcement- as well as the potential for Canadian convoys to inspire similar actions in the US, where right wing media personalities have embraced the idea- we speak with two experts: Joan Donovan , Ph.D., the Research Director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Amarnath Amarasingam , Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the School o...
Feb 15, 2022•40 min
The first segment in this episode focuses on the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act, known as the EARN IT Act. Nathalie Maréchal, Ph.D., Senior Policy and Partnerships Manager at Ranking Digital Rights, wrote in Tech Policy Press about what motivates her opposition to the legislation, and she joined the podcast to share her perspective. The second segment takes on the idea of tech exceptionalism. Yaël Eisenstat, a Future of Democracy Fellow at the Berggruen I...
Feb 13, 2022•58 min
Warning: this episode features discussion of sexual assault and rape. This week’s podcast has two segments. We’re going to hear from Vice News reporter Carter Sherman about her story from last week titled “Woman Says She Was ‘Virtually Gang-Raped’ in Facebook's Metaverse,” detailing an incident that represents an early test of Facebook’s ability create a safe environment in its virtual world. Then, I speak with Dr. Carly Kocurek, a cultural historian specializing in the study of new media techno...
Feb 06, 2022•46 min
Earlier this year, Matt Rivitz announced he planned to step aside from Sleeping Giants, an activist campaign launched five years ago to address the flow of advertising revenues to sites that promote hate speech and disinformation. The ad tech ecosystem is exceptionally complex- and the incentives in place lend themselves to waste and fraud, and to large sums of money flowing to sites that promote questionable content often without the knowledge of the people spending that money. In 2016, Rivitz ...
Jan 30, 2022•35 min
Ukraine has long been known as a "live fire" environment in cybersecurity circles, but with Russian aggression intensifying there are concerns that cyberattacks may signal the beginning of a broader conflict following a string of attacks in the last week that targeted Ukrainian government and private sector websites. The United States Department of Homeland Security has also warned that Russia may target "US networks—from low-level denials-of-service to destructive attacks targeting critical inf...
Jan 26, 2022•20 min
Last week, the European Parliament gave initial approval to the Digital Services Act, which contains a set of regulations that will have major implications for tech platforms, including on how they moderate content and on their business models. This spring, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union will debate the details of the legislation before voting on a final version. To learn more about what is at stake and where the DSA is in the process, I spoke with Mathias Vermeule...
Jan 25, 2022•42 min
This episode features two segments. First, we catch up with one reporter who has read every single one of the documents leaked by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen: Shoshana Wodinsky , a staff reporter at Gizmodo covering consumer privacy and tech policy. Shoshana is part of a team that is preparing to release the papers to the public. And then, we hear from three lawyers- including one former Massachusetts attorney general- that were involved in the legal actions that led to the Big Tobacco...
Jan 23, 2022•1 hr 12 min
There are two segments in this episode. First, we hear from Jay Van Bavel , an Associate Professor of Psychology & Neural Science at New York University, about social media, misinformation and collective behavior following a week in which he was brigaded by far right and anti-vaccine personalities for calling in to question the veracity of claims made in Joe Rogan’s popular podcast. And second, we catch up with Trooper Sanders , the CEO of Benefits Data Trust, about new broadband benefits in...
Jan 16, 2022•46 min
