The Stanford Cyber Policy Center, a joint initiative of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Law School, is Stanford University's research center for the interdisciplinary study of issues at the nexus of technology, governance and public policy focused on digital technologies impacting democracy, security, and geopolitics globally.
Spring Seminar Series | APRIL - JUNE
The Spring Seminar Series kicks off April 11th. For dates and speaker list visit the Spring Seminar Series page. Titles and abstracts coming soon.
The mission of the Global Digital Policy Incubator is to inspire policy and governance innovations that reinforce democratic values, universal human rights, and the rule of law in the digital realm. We serve as a collaboration hub for the development of norms, guidelines, and laws that enhance freedom, security, and trust in the global digital ecosystem. The bottom line question that guides this initiative: How do we help governments and private sector technology companies establish governance norms, policies, and processes that allow citizens and society to reap the upside benefits of technology, while protecting against the downside risks?
The Stanford Internet Observatory is a cross-disciplinary program of research, teaching and policy engagement for the study of abuse in current information technologies, with a focus on social media. Under the program direction of computer security expert Alex Stamos, the Observatory was created to learn about the abuse of the internet in real time, to develop a novel curriculum on trust and safety that is a first in computer science, and to translate our research discoveries into training and policy innovations for the public good.
The Program on Democracy and the Internet envisions digital technologies supporting rather than subverting democracy by maximizing the benefits and minimizing the threats through changes in policy, technology, and social and ethical technological norms. Through knowledge creation and education, and by leveraging the convening power of Stanford University, PDI creates and shares original empirical research around how digital technologies are impacting democracy to inform and educate decision-makers in the field, including the next generation of technologists, business leaders, and policymakers.
The Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance (GTG) is dedicated to world-class scholarly and policy-oriented research on the political, legal, and economic implications of digital innovation and global competition. Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and a proliferation of smart, connected devices will revolutionize warfare and create new challenges and opportunities in statecraft. They will enable automation in countless domains, and lead to as of yet unknown applications that catalyze new industries and business models—and in the process, massively alter how economic value is created, captured and distributed, with ripple effects in the domestic politics of nations and the broader global political economy.
The Program on Platform Regulation, headed by Daphne Keller, focuses on current or emerging law governing Internet platforms, with an emphasis on laws’ consequences for the rights and interests of Internet users and the public.
The Stanford Social Media Lab works on understanding psychological and interpersonal processes in social media. The team specializes in using computational linguistics and behavioral experiments to understand how the words we use can reveal psychological and social dynamics, such as deception and trust, emotional dynamics, and relationships.
Following the election of another Liberal Government, free speech and censorship will soon be back on the table. On this week’s No Nonsense, Tech Law Expert Daphne Keller on the problems of regulating online content.
On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, four Stanford scholars and leading experts in national security, terrorism and contemporary conflict – Condoleezza Rice, Amy Zegart, Martha Crenshaw and Lisa Blaydes – reflect on how their teaching of the terrorist attacks has evolved.
In a new piece in the Financial Times, Marietje Schaake argues that protection for critical infrastructure is too often awarded using outdated criteria
A new grant aims to support a collaborative team of both Stanford and University of Washington researchers, as they explore new areas of study in the mis- and disinformation field.
James joins as a Senior Advisor and will be partnering with Andrew Grotto, Director of GTG on a project focused on the concept of "reasonableness" in tort law and regulatory policy for digital risks, especially cybersecurity risks.
POLITICO’s annual ranking of the 28 power players behind Europe’s tech revolution includes the Cyber Policy Center's Marietje Schaake. "As EU and U.S. officials seek common ground in regulating the tech sector, Schaake is the voice to listen to on both sides of the Atlantic."
Christopher Painter explains why the emerging pattern of ransomware attacks needs to be addressed at a political level – both domestically and internationally – and not be treated solely as a criminal issue.
In The Politics of Order in Informal Markets: How the State Shapes Private Governance, Grossman explores findings that challenge the conventional wisdom that private good governance in developing countries thrives when the government keeps its hands off private group affairs.
Scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies hope that President Joe Biden’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin will lay the groundwork for negotiations in the near future, particularly around nuclear weapons.
When we’re faced with a video recording of an event—such as an incident of police brutality—we can generally trust that the event happened as shown in the video. But that may soon change, thanks to the advent of so-called “deepfake” videos that use machine learning technology to show a real person saying and doing things they haven’t.
