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.
Our Programs
The Cyber Policy Center is home to six programs, all focused on issues at the nexus of technology, governance, law and public policy.
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.
A new program launched in 2023, the Program on Governance of Emerging Technologies was formed to shape the technical, ethical, and governance infrastructure of emerging technologies and the next-generation internet.
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.
As the war in Ukraine continues to reshape security needs in Europe and globally, scholars from the Freeman Spogli Institute agree that Finland can play a unique leadership role in defense and cybersecurity alliances.
The second annual Trust & Safety Research Conference, sponsored by the Stanford Internet Observatory, will take place at the Alumni Center at Stanford University
A cornerstone of life online has been that platforms are not responsible for content posted by users. What happens if that immunity goes away? Daphne Keller spoke with Isaac Chotiner of The New Yorker about how the Supreme Court may change how the Internet functions.
Moderated Content host Evelyn Douek discusses Twitter’s data security problems and what this says about privacy regulation more generally with Whitney Merrill, the Data Protection Officer and Privacy Counsel at Asana and long-time privacy lawyer including as an attorney at the FTC, and Riana Pfefferkorn, a Research Scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory.
Large-scale voting fraud may be a chimera, but counting a rising number of ballots quickly will require investments in state and local election administration. Published in the Wall Street Journal.
SIO is now part of the new Coalition for Independent Technology Research to share independent, trustworthy research on digital technology and online harms.
Daphne Keller of the Program on Platform Regulation writes about the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a major milestone in the history of platform regulation. Other governments are now asking themselves what the DSA’s passage means for them. The post briefly discusses that question, with a focus on platforms like Facebook or YouTube and their smaller would-be rivals. Published in Verfassungsblog.
Renee DiResta of the Stanford Internet Observatory writes about the growing body of research suggesting human behavior on social media is strikingly similar to collective behavior in nature. Published in Noema Magazine.
