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, particular

At the Crossroads of Digital Imperialism & Digital Development

May 28th, 2021 1h 5m

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 “p

Mistrust: How to revitalize civics at a moment of low public trust in institutions

May 27th, 2021 1h

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 mistrustfu

Restoring US Leadership for Global Health

May 25th, 2021 55m 16s

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 progress

Foresight and Decolonial Humanitarian Tech Ethics

May 12th, 2021 1h 3m

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 pas

Governing the Social Media City

Apr 27th, 2021 57m 31s

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, an

Decoding Stigma: Designing for Sex Worker Liberatory Futures

Apr 13th, 2021 1h 5m

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, carc

COVID-19 from the Margins: Pandemic Invisibilities, Policies and Resistance in the Datafied Society

Apr 5th, 2021 58m 4s

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 p

Reopening Schools: A Seminar for State & Local Leaders

Mar 24th, 2021 1h 2m

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 meas

Hindsight is 2020: Learning From our Past to Build a Better Future

Mar 22nd, 2021 1h 3m

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 m

Digital Witnesses: The Power of Looking

Mar 8th, 2021 1h 10m

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

Organizing, Budgeting, and Implementing Wraparound Services for People in Quarantine and Isolation

Feb 26th, 2021 1h 15m

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 fo

Covid State of Play: Vaccines and Variants

Feb 19th, 2021 59m 44s

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.

Marginalized Women, Technology, COVID-19, and Intimate Partner Violence

Feb 12th, 2021 1h

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 implement

White Surveillance and Black Digital Publics

Feb 3rd, 2021 58m 6s

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 r

Tanner Lecture 2020 – Between Suffocation and Abdication: Three Eras of Governing Digital Platforms

Jan 28th, 2021 1h

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

Covid State of Play: 2021 Outlook and Vaccine Disinformation

Jan 15th, 2021 1h 12m

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 resea

A More Representative First Amendment?

Jan 12th, 2021 1h

Professors Khaled Beydoun and Justin Hansford join IfRFA Director Kendra Albert for a discussion of the way in which First Amendment work could better engage with critical race theory. This event highlights Professor Beydoun’s work on surveilla

Covid State of Play: Building a Public Sector Health Intelligence Capability

Dec 18th, 2020 1h 2m

Tracking the spread of COVID-19 has proved critical to efforts to contain the virus, but to do so, public health officials need to collect and utilize large amounts of data. Tarah Wheeler, Cyber Project Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science a

Covid State of Play: Covid, Racism, and Environmental Justice

Dec 7th, 2020 1h 1m

Jacqueline Patterson, Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, and Dr. Michelle Morse, Founding Co-Director of EqualHealth, Hospitalist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and social medicine course director at Harvard Medi

The True Costs of Misinformation: Producing Moral and Technical Order in a Time of Pandemonium

Dec 4th, 2020 1h 3m

It all feels like a precursor to a bad joke: What do foreign agents, white supremacists, conspiracists, snake oil salesmen, political operatives, white academics, and a disgruntled bunch of zoomers have in common? The groups have collided in a

Red and Blue Realities: Political Discourse and the 2020 Election

Nov 23rd, 2020 59m 1s

Yochai Benkler and Rob Faris present their recent research that assesses how asymmetrically polarized media in the United States shape political discourse and explains how the structure of media ecosystems sustains two starkly different version

The Connected Parent: An Expert Guide to Parenting in a Digital World

Nov 13th, 2020 59m 44s

This book talk discussion included:Introduction: Jonathan Zittrain is the George Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School. He is also a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, a professor of computer science

Retrospective Contact Tracing: How States Can Investigate Covid-19 Clusters

Nov 13th, 2020 1h 4m

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School’s Program in Global Public Policy and Social Change, the National Governors Association, and Partners In Health’s U.S. Public Health Accompaniment Uni

Election Chaos: Platform Preparations for the US Election

Nov 3rd, 2020 56m 39s

evelyn douek and Julie Owono discuss how platforms are preparing for—and anticipating—a variety of issues related to disinformation in the lead up to, and immediate aftermath of, the 2020 US election on November 3. douek focuses on what platfor