Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society: Audio Fishbowl

Platforms, Content Moderation, & the Hidden Decisions that Shape Social Media In this talk, author Tarleton Gillespie discusses how social media platforms police what we post online – and the societal impact of these decisions. He flips the story to argue that content moderation is not ancillary to what platforms do; it is essential, definitional, and constitutional. Given that, the very fact of moderation should change how we understand what platforms are. For more information, visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018-10-30/custodians-internet

Virginia Eubanks joins us for a rousing conversation about her timely and provocative book, Automating Inequality. In Automating Inequality, Eubanks systematically investigates the impacts of data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models on poor and working-class people in America. The book is full of heart-wrenching and eye-opening stories, from a woman in Indiana whose benefits are literally cut off as she lays dying to a family in Pennsylvania in daily fear of losing their daughter because they fit a certain statistical profile. "This book is downright scary,” says Naomi Klein, “but with its striking research and moving, indelible portraits of life in the ‘digital poorhouse,’ you will emerge smarter and more empowered to demand justice.” More info on this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018-10-23/automating-inequality

Rachel Gershon — Senior Associate at the Center for Health Law and Economics at UMass Medical School — discusses the nature of disability and disability determination; the resulting limitations in data availability; and implications for public policy. This year, several states applied for and received permission from the federal government to implement work requirements in their Medicaid programs. Policy designs vary by state, but all states build in considerations for people with disabilities. These considerations include exemptions and exceptions from work requirements for individuals unable to work due to a disability. Due to the nature of disability and the nature of disability determination processes, states will face limitations in identifying all individuals who are unable to work due to a disability. Medical claims do not necessarily provide enough information to determine a person’s ability to work. Medical diagnoses and disability determinations both can lag symptoms by months or years. As a result, relying on claims or disability determination data could leave out individuals who are unable to work due to a disability. At the same time, waiting for a diagnosis or a disability determination is a critical time period for individuals with disabilities to be able to access health care. For more information visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018-10-16/determining-disability

Universities have automated many aspects of teaching, instruction, student services, libraries, personnel management, building management, and finance, leading to a profusion of discrete data about the activities of individuals. Universities see great value of these data for learning analytics, faculty evaluation, strategic decisions, and other sensitive matters. Commercial entities, governments, and private individuals also see value in these data and are besieging universities with requests for access. In this talk, Christine L. Borgman discusses the conflicts & challenges of balancing obligations for stewardship, trust, privacy, confidentiality – and often academic freedom – with the value of exploiting data for analytical and commercial purposes. For more information about this event visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018-10-09/open-data-grey-data-and-stewardship Photo by @AlyssaAGoodman

The Berkman Klein Center's geek team helps build amazing tools that help us study the Internet and advance the public interest. In this talk they discuss and demo some of the tools we produce, including TagTeam and Media Cloud. Learn more about this event: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018-10-02/software-social-good

Is social media destroying democracy? Are Russian propaganda or "Fake news" entrepreneurs on Facebook undermining our sense of a shared reality? A conventional wisdom has emerged since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 that new technologies and their manipulation by foreign actors played a decisive role in his victory and are responsible for the sense of a "post-truth" moment in which disinformation and propaganda thrives. Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one year anniversary of the Trump presidency. Analyzing millions of news stories together with Twitter and Facebook shares, broadcast television and YouTube, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of contemporary American political communications. Through data analysis and detailed qualitative case studies of coverage of immigration, Clinton scandals, and the Trump Russia investigation, the book finds that the right-wing media ecosystem operates fundamentally differently than the rest of the media environment. Authors Yochai Benkler, Rob Faris, and Hal Roberts present their years-in-the-making research on the media ecosystem, and discuss their findings with Martha Minow and Claire Wardle. More info on this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018-10-04/network-propaganda

Bruce Schneier, the author of Click Here to Kill Everybody in conversation with Abby Everett Jaques, MIT. From the description of "Click Here to Kill Everybody": Computer security is no longer about data; it's about life and property. This change makes an enormous difference, and will shake up our industry in many ways. First, data authentication and integrity will become more important than confidentiality. And second, our largely regulation-free Internet will become a thing of the past. Soon we will no longer have a choice between government regulation and no government regulation. Our choice is between smart government regulation and stupid government regulation. Given this future, it's vital that we look back at what we've learned from past attempts to secure these systems, and forward at what technologies, laws, regulations, economic incentives, and social norms we need to secure them in the future. More info on this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018-09-25/click-here-kill-everybody

Drawing from memes, magazine covers and legal documents from the past 60 years, Jonathan Zittrain gives a lively overview of the Internet since its inception, spanning the debates, concerns, and hopes in the years since, and how the Berkman Klein Center fits into—and contributes to—these conversations. More info on this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018-09-18/platforms-politics-and-power

Narrative manipulation issues - such as manufactured consensus, brigading, harassment, information laundering, fake accounts, news voids, and more - are increasingly well-documented problems affecting the entire social ecosystem.This has had negative consequences for information integrity, and for trust. In this talk Renee DiResta (Director of Research at New Knowledge, and Head of Policy at nonprofit Data for Democracy) examines the ways that these same manipulative tactics are being deployed on Amazon, which is now the dominant product search engine and a battlefield for economically and ideologically motivated actors. For more info on this event visit: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/05/DiResta

Computational creativity—a subdomain of artificial intelligence concerned with systems that replicate or assist human creative endeavors—has been the  subject of academic inquiry for decades. Now, with recent improvements in machine learning techniques and the rising popularity of all things AI, computational creativity is a medium for critically and commercially successful works of art. From a 2016 Rembrandt to Jukedeck’s instant music (or muzak?), AI-assisted and AI-driven works are a reality. This raises mind-bending questions about the nature of creativity, the relationship between the artist and the viewer, even the existence of free will. For many lawyers, it also raises a more immediate question: who owns all of this art? Cyberlaw Clinicians Jess Fjeld and Mason Kortz discuss copyright in AI-generated works, the need for a shared understanding of what is and isn’t up for grabs in a license, and how forward-thinking contracts can prevent AI developers and artists from having their rights decided by our (often notoriously backwards-looking) legal system. Learn more about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/05/Fjeld_Kortz

Harvard Law School is one of the top law schools in the world and educates the intellectual and financial elites. Lawyers are held to the highest professional and ethical standards. And yet, when it comes to digital piracy, they overwhelmingly perceive file sharing as an acceptable social practice – as long as individuals do not derive monetary benefits from it. So should digital files be considered a commons? In this talk, Dariusz and Jerome identify and discuss the social and economic contexts in which file sharing is considered more or less acceptable by law practitioners. In the process, they foster a conversation on the possible changes in regulation that would allow us to catch up with the established social norm. Learn more about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/05/Jemielniak_Herguex

Founding members of the CryptoKitties team, Dieter Shirley and Alex Shih, discuss the unique governance, legal, and regulatory challenges of putting cats on the Ethereum blockchain. CryptoKitties is an early pioneer in the space, and, having navigated securities law early on in its release, will share unique insights on classifications. They also discuss some of the more ethical challenges they've been facing, and best practices for approach. Learn more about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/05/CryptoKitties

Professor Lawrence Lessig is joined by Professors Ruth L. Okediji, Laura DeNardis, and Jonathan Zittrain to reflect on the 20th anniversary of Professor Lessig's foundational paper "The Laws of Cyberspace," and how the landscape of Internet law has changed in the two decades since. Learn more about this event: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/04/Lessig

Social scientists, computer scientists, historians, lawyers, political scientists, architects, and philosophers share some short glimpses into how we can better incorporate social responsibility and ethics into the development of new technology. More info about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/luncheon/04/ethicaltech

Blockchain technology is ultimately a dual-edge technology that can be used to either support or supplant the law. This talk looks at the impact of blockchain technology of a variety of fields (finance, contracts, organizations, etc.), and the benefits and drawbacks of blockchain-based systems. Learn more about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018/04/DeFilippi