Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society: Audio Fishbowl

The long-term viability of an unowned, open Internet remains in question. Any analysis of where the Internet is headed as a protocol and a platform must take into account the activities of both public and private entities that see the Internet as a source of intelligence — and a field of contention. Yochai Benkler, Bruce […]

After months of hype and hope about MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses, one thing is clear: they aren’t very good at teaching those most in need of education. Instead, they’re serving the education “haves”: About 80 percent of people taking MOOCs already have a college degree. But free online courses may still spark an [...]

Download the MP3 …or download the OGG audio format! More info on this event here. Read more here Susan’s Homepage @dangerousspeech A Prelude to Murder: Calling Humans Vermin The Innocence of YouTube Words as Weapons Umati: Kenyan Online Discourse to Catalyze and Counter Violence Elections and Ethnic Violence Umati Final Report Vile Crime or Inalienable […]

Governments around the world are hacking into IT-systems, with deep implications for privacy, IT-security, the legal process and geopolitics. Should governments actually have the ability and the right to hack, and to weaken global communications networks? And do conventional concepts such as privacy and communications secrecy sufficiently capture the status quo, or do we need [...]

How is a lawyer like a wizard? How does a courtroom resemble an epic battle? How is a casebook like the Dungeon Master’s Guide? If you played Dungeons & Dragons in another age, or today, then you know this enormously influential role-playing gaming, which shaped the video gaming industry and geek culture, can be perfect [...]

The notion of ‘cyberpeace’ requires a separation of war-time cyber activities from peace-time cyber activities. This project questions “cyberwar” (the concept, its reality and its legal framework) and examines its relationship to the idea of peace. Doctrinally, the ‘cyber’ realm grew between conceptions of war and peace. In this talk Camille François — Berkman and [...]

Since September, the public has been experimenting with an app that relies on the goodness of humankind. Called *impossible*, it leverages the idea of a gift economy through social media to grant wishes. Users interact by posting wishes—such as a desire to learn Spanish or to find a jogging buddy—and other *impossible* users who can [...]

Most of society’s innovation systems –- academic science, the patent system, open source, etc. -– are “open” in the sense that they are designed to facilitate knowledge disclosures amongst innovators. An essential difference across innovation systems, however, is whether disclosures take place only after final innovations are completed, or whether disclosures relate to intermediate solutions [...]

When we read about the Chinese internet in the Western press, we usually hear stories about censorship, political repression, and instability. But Chinese youth are actually sharing information and socializing with strangers online much more than those in the West suspect, finding ways to semi-anonymously connect to each other and establish a web of casual [...]

In the wake of the disclosures about government surveillance and the rise of corporate-run applications and protocols, is the idea of an “unowned” Internet still a credible one? The Berkman Center’s Jonathan Zittrain moderates a panel, including Yochai Benkler — Harvard Law School — Ebele Okobi — Yahoo! — Bruce Schneier — CO3 Systems — [...]

In October, President of Brazil Dilma Roussef announced a high-level meeting on Internet governance to be held in April in Rio de Janeiro. ITU will have not one, not two, but three international meetings, and will be tackling Internet issues. As governments initiate talks about policies with regards to who controls the Internet, Veni Markovski — the ICANN vice-president [...]

As the use of robotic technology expands private third-party surveillance will also expand to new locations and scenarios. Is it possible — or desirable — to craft meaningful laws or guidelines before widespread private adoption of robots? In this talk Margot E. Kaminski — Research Scholar in Law, Executive Director of the Information Society Project, [...]

Although women are just as likely as men to read Wikipedia, they only represent an estimated 16% of global Wikipedia editors and 23% of U.S. adult Wikipedia editors. In this talk, Eszter Hargittai — Delaney Family Professor in the Communication Studies Department and Faculty Associate of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, and [...]

We’re used to thinking that public goods must be produced by governments. But there’s a fundamental and growing class of public goods that emerge from private interaction. Today emergent public goods — Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia — burgeon on the internet ushering in a new age. But there must exist a panoply of public goods which [...]

The world faces a growing population, resource constraints, climate change, and a global food system under stress. But new technology is limited in its ability to address the problems facing those in poverty. 780 million still lack access to clean water. 1/5 of humanity lives without electricity. 80% of sub-Saharan Africa is farmed with a [...]