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.
Emma Llansó from the Center for Democracy & Technology and Daphne Keller from the Program on Platform Regulation are guests on the TechDirt podcast to talk about us the DSA and its many implications.
Charles Mok is an internet entrepreneur and IT advocate. He was formerly a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council and founded the Hong Kong chapter of the Internet Society. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Global Digital Policy Incubator at Stanford University. This article appeared in OPTF.
Pan’s research focuses on political and authoritarian politics, including how preferences and behaviors are shaped by political censorship, propaganda, and information manipulation.
Stanford Internet Observatory collaborated with Graphika to analyze a large network of accounts removed from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in our latest report. This information operation likely originated in the United States and targeted a range of countries in the Middle East and Central Asia.
Twitter suspended a network of accounts that coordinated to promote narratives around the coronavirus pandemic, and to amplify a pro-Russian news site ahead of the invasion of Ukraine.
Following the success of The China Questions, a new volume of insights from top China specialists explains key issues shaping today’s United States–China relationship. Graham Webster of the DigiChina Project authored "What Is at Stake in the US–China Technological Relationship?" for the book.
In an essay for Lawfare Blog, Samantha Bradshaw, Renee DiResta and Christopher Giles look at how state war propaganda in Russia is increasingly prevalent on platforms that offer minimal-moderation virality as their value proposition.
Julie Owono, Executive Director of the Content Policy & Society Lab (CPSL) and a fellow of the Program on Democracy and the Internet (PDI) at Stanford University, on the issue of banning platforms. Authored for Just Security.
In an essay for Lawfare Blog, Samantha Bradshaw of American University and Shelby Grossman of the Stanford Internet Observatory explore whether two key platforms, Facebook and Twitter, were internally consistent in how they applied their labels during the 2020 presidential election.
During a hearing titled “A Growing Threat: Foreign And Domestic Sources Of Disinformation," DiResta offered expert testimony on influence operations and the spread of narratives across social and media networks.
Gab was founded in 2016 as an uncensored alternative to mainstream social media platforms. Stanford Internet Observatory’s latest report looks at behaviors and dynamics across the platform.
At a conference hosted by the Cyber Policy Center and Obama Foundation, former U.S. President Barack Obama delivered the keynote address about how information is created and consumed, and the threat that disinformation poses to democracy.
During three panel discussions at the Cyber Policy Center, speakers discussed the challenges and potential solutions to disinformation and its often negative impact to democracy.
