The US 2020 elections have been fraught with challenges, including the rise of "fake news” and threats of foreign intervention emerging after 2016, ongoing concerns of racially-targeted disinformation, and new threats related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital technologies will have played a more important role in the 2020 elections than ever before.

On November 4th at 10am PST, join the team at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, in collaboration with the Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, and the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, for a day-after discussion of the role of digital technologies in the 2020 Elections.  Speakers will include Nathaniel Persily, faculty co-director of the Cyber Policy Center and Director of the Program on Democracy and the Internet, Marietje Schaake, the Center’s International Policy Director and International Policy Fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Alex Stamos, Director of the Cyber Center’s Internet Observatory and former Chief Security Officer at Facebook and Yahoo, Renee DiResta, Research Manager at the Internet Observatory, Andrew Grotto, Director of the Center’s Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance, and Rob Reich, Faculty Director of the Center for Ethics in Society, in conversation with Kelly Born, the Center’s Executive Director.

Please note that we will also have a YouTube livestream available for potential overflow or for anyone having issues connecting via Zoom: https://youtu.be/H2k62-JCAgE

 

Digital technologies are linked to a growing number of social and political maladies, including political repression, disinformation, and polarization. Accountability for these technologies is weak, allowing authoritarian rulers and bad actors to exploit the information landscape for their gain. A largely unregulated surveillance industry, innovations in technologies of remote control, dark PR firms, and “hack-for-hire” services feeding off rivers of poorly secured personal data also muddy the waters. This set of serious, democracy-unfriendly challenges calls for a deeper reexamination of our communications ecosystem. 

On October 28th at 10am Pacific Time, join the team at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, in collaboration with author Ronald J. Deibert, Eileen Donahoe, Executive Director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, and Larry Diamond, co-lead for the Global Digital Policy Incubator in conversation with Kelly Born, the Center’s Executive Director.

 

 

Please join the Cyber Policy Center, Wednesday, October 21, from 10 a.m. –11 a.m. pacific time, with host Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director of the Cyber Policy Center, in conversation with Dmitry Grozoubinski, founder of ExplainTrade.com, and visiting professor at University of Strathclyde, along with Anu Bradford, Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organizations at Columbia Law School and author of How the European Union Rules the World, for a discussion and exploration of the digital trade war. 

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

 

Social media sites have now surpassed cable, network, and local TV as primary sources of political news for one-in-five Americans. Yet the speed and volume of online information, challenges discerning the credibility of online sources, and concerns about viral online disinformation place a significant burden on users. What do we know about what new user-facing digital literacy initiatives are underway, what the research has to say about the impact and effectiveness of media literacy interventions, and what the implications are for both corporate and government policy.

On Wednesday, October 14th, from 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. Pacific Time, please join Kelly Born, Executive Director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, in conversation with Jennifer Kavanaugh, of RAND’s Countering Truth Decay initiative, Kristin Lord, President and CEO of IREX, and Claire Wardle, co-founder and director of First Draft, for a discussion on the state of Media Literacy.

Recent public outcries over facial recognition technology, police and state usage of automated surveillance tools, and racially motivated disinformation on social media have underscored the ways in which new digital technologies threaten to exacerbate existing racial and social cleavages.  What is known about how digital technologies are contributing to racial tensions, what key questions remain unanswered, and what policy changes, by government or tech platforms, might help?

On Wednesday, September 23rd, from 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. Pacific Time, please join us for Race and Technology, with Kelly Born, Executive Director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, in conversation with Julie Owono, the Executive Director of Internet Sans Frontières, a digital rights advocacy organization based in France, an affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and at Stanford’s Digital Civil Society Lab, and a member of Facebook’s Oversight Board; Mutale Nkonde, CEO of AI for the People, a member of the recently formed TikTok Content Advisory Council, and a fellow at Stanford’s Digital Civil Society Lab; and Safiya Noble, Associate Professor at UCLA in the Departments of Information Studies and African American Studies, and author of Algorithms of Oppression. 

The event is open to the public, but registration is required.

Please join the Cyber Policy Center on Wednesday, September 9th, from 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. pacific time for Navigating U.S.-China Technology Futures, an online seminar, open to the public with Andrew Grotto, Director of the Program on Geopolitics, Technology, Graham Webster, editor in chief of the Stanford–New America DigiChina Project, Jeffrey Ding from the Center for International Security and Cooperation, and Jennifer Pan, Assistant Professor of Communication in the Stanford Department of Communication. Speakers will be exploring how the U.S. can address security and values challenges in U.S.-China technological cooperation, while avoiding excesses that impede innovation and harm innocent people.

This event is open to the public but registration is required.

Join the Cyber Policy Center on August 26th, at 10 a.m. pacific time, for a look how governments around the world are pushing to ban strong encryption. The talk will feature speakers Sam Woolley, Riana Pfefferkorn and Mathew Baum as they explore the different policy issues being used by governments to justify their agendas. This event is open to the public, but registration is required.

REGISTER

Matthew A. Baum (Ph.D., UC San Diego, 2000) is the Marvin Kalb Professor of Global Communications and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and Department of Government. His research focuses on delineating the effects of domestic politics on international conflict and cooperation in general and American foreign policy in particular, as well as on the role of the mass media and public opinion in contemporary American politics. His research has appeared in over a dozen leading scholarly journals, such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics. His books include Soft News Goes to War: Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy in the New Media Age (2003, Princeton University Press), War Stories: The Causes and Consequences of Public Views of War (2009, Princeton University Press, co-authored with Tim Groeling), and War and Democratic Constraint: How the Public Influences Foreign Policy (2015, Princeton University Press, co-authored with Phil Potter). He has also contributed op-ed articles to a variety of newspapers, magazines, and blog sites in the United States and abroad. Before coming to Harvard, Baum was an associate professor of political science and communication studies at UCLA. 

Riana Pfefferkorn is the Associate Director of Surveillance and Cybersecurity at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. Her work focuses on investigating and analyzing the U.S. government's policy and practices for forcing decryption and/or influencing crypto-related design of online platforms and services, devices, and products, both via technical means and through the courts and legislatures. Riana also researches the benefits and detriments of strong encryption on free expression, political engagement, economic development, and other public interests.

Dr. Samuel Woolley is a writer and researcher. He is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and in the School of Information (by courtesy) at the University of Texas at Austin.  He is the program director of propaganda research at the Center for Media Engagement at UT. Woolley's work focuses on the ways in which emerging technology are leveraged for both democracy and control. He is the author of the book "The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth" (PublicAffairs), an exploration of how tools from artificial intelligence to virtual reality are being used in efforts to manipulate public opinion and discusses what society can do to respond. He is the co-editor (with Dr. Philip N. Howard), of the book "Computational Propaganda" (Oxford University Press), a series of country-based case studies on social media and digital information operations.