The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) is pleased to announce that Kelly Born has been named the first executive director of the Cyber Policy Center. With a focus on cybersecurity, disinformation, digital democracy and election security, the Cyber Policy Center’s research, teaching and policy engagement aim to bring new insights and solutions to national governments, international institutions and industry.

As executive director, Born will collaborate with the center’s program leaders to pioneer academic programs focused on cyber issues, including new lines of research, a case-based, policy-oriented curriculum, pre- and postdoctoral training and practitioner fellowships, policy workshops and executive education. Born will also serve as the key spokesperson within the university and externally to the media, policy influencers, industry, foundations and civil society organizations. 

Prior to joining Stanford, Born helped to launch and lead The Madison Initiative at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic undertakings in America working to reduce polarization and improve U.S. democracy. There, Born designed and implemented strategies focused on money in politics, electoral reform, civic engagement and digital disinformation. In this capacity, Born worked with academics, government leaders, social media companies, foundations, and nonprofits around the world to help improve online information ecosystems. 

Before joining the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Born worked as a strategy consultant with the Monitor Group, supporting strategic planning efforts at Fortune 100 companies, governments, and nonprofits in the U.S., Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. 

Born earned a master’s degree in international policy from Stanford University. The graduate program is offered through the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

“We are thrilled that Kelly is returning to Stanford to play a leadership role at the Cyber Policy Center,” said Nathaniel Persily, the center’s faculty co-director, and the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. “Her deep knowledge of our core research areas and strong relationships with leaders in academia, government and technology circles position the center well to achieve its strategic aims.”

The Cyber Policy Center was established in June 2019 and includes four programs: the Program on Democracy and the Internet; the Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance; the Internet Observatory; and the Global Digital Policy Incubator. Together, they focus on addressing the threats cyber technologies pose to security and governance worldwide. 

The center’s launch event, “Securing Our Cyber Future: Innovative Approaches to Digital Threats,” featured the center’s first white paper, Securing American Elections: Prescriptions for Enhancing the Integrity and Independence of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Elections and Beyond,” which was co-authored by scholars affiliated with the Cyber Policy Center. The report details 45 recommendations for protecting the 2020 U.S. presidential election from domestic and foreign interference.

“I am honored and excited to have the opportunity to work with the distinguished faculty and staff at the new Cyber Policy Center, as well as the broader Stanford community of faculty and students,” said Born. “Questions of how best to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms presented by our increasingly networked, online world are amongst the most important and challenging questions global societies are grappling with today. Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center is ideally suited to pursue the research, teaching and policy engagement necessary to help answer these questions.”

About the Cyber Policy Center

The digital age has exposed countries to new security threats and sovereignty challenges that policymakers have only begun to address. In addition, social media and network technologies increasingly strain the balance between protecting the First Amendment and preventing foreign actors from influencing elections. To date, technological advancement in this domain has outpaced government policies, doctrines, or regulations. The Cyber Policy Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University aims to address this need through research, policy advocacy and teaching. Program areas address topics including cybersecurity, election security, misinformation, digital democracy and human rights, artificial intelligence, and emerging technologies. Through research, policy engagement and teaching, the Cyber Policy Center brings cutting-edge insights and solutions to national governments, international institutions, and industry.

As the internet has increasingly been used to weaponize information, governments and technology companies have begun to grapple with new issues surrounding free expression and privacy.

Technology companies are being called upon to reshape their privacy and hate speech policies, and politicians are tackling the possibility  of  tech industry regulation.

Achieving both of those things, according to Eileen Donahoe, executive director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPI), is easier said than done.

“They all know that they need help,” Donahoe told Freeman Spogli Institute Director Michael McFaul on an episode of the World Class podcast. “Private-sector entities are looking for help from civil society and academics. And governments need help if for no other reason than they don’t always understand what’s going on in the platforms."

Free Speech Dilemma
Facebook and Google both have their own definitions of free speech, their own community values and their own terms of service, which they dictate to their billions of users. But their parameters of free expression are not always aligned with those of the U.S. government, Donahoe said.

“There’s an interplay between the rules of the platforms and the rules of the governments in which they operate, and that’s causing a lot of confusion,” she said. “We’re trying to help develop an appropriate metaphor for what these platforms are — some see themselves as a utility, some see them as editors and media. Whatever metaphor you pick, the rules and responsibilities that flow from it will be different. And we don’t have a metaphor yet.”

Over the last few years, tech companies have begun asking outsiders for help in developing norms for their platforms. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2018 that he was developing an “External Oversight Board” to help the company evaluate its community guidelines and for assistance with some of the content-based decisions on its platform.

Some companies are going as far as to call on the government for regulation, she said.

“They recognize that they’re not well suited to develop all of these norms for [their] platforms, which have such gigantic effects on society,” Donahoe said.

To Regulate or Not to Regulate
Several heads of technology companies have testified in front of the U.S. Senate this summer, including Zuckerberg, who answered questions about the company’s new cryptocurrency, and Karan Bhatia, Google's vice president for government affairs and public policy who testified on the question of whether Google’s search engine censors conservative media.

“Techlash” — the growing animosity toward large technology companies — has been on the rise, Donahoe said, and the government isn’t sure what their next steps are in handling these issues with the technology companies yet.

“So many congressional representatives and senators are a bit reticent to jump in,” she said. “They don’t want to undermine free expression, and they don’t want to destroy the American internet industry.”

Europe has already started  tackling this problem with the passage of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which standardizes data protection laws across all countries in the European Union.

Donahoe said that while she thinks the GDPR is a good move, there have been other laws passed in Europe, such as Germany’s Network Enforcement Act — which puts the liability on social media companies to censor the content on their respective platforms — that undermine free expression and democratic values.

“It shifts what we would normally consider democratic responsibility for assessing criminality to the private sector, and I find that problematic,” Donahoe said. “It’s a dangerous concept — a government is asking platforms to restrict content and be liable in a tort basis for content that is perceived to be harmful…it’s a very slippery slope.”

Related: Watch Eileen Donahoe’s interactive workshop on deep fakes at the June 2019 Copenhagen Democracy Summit

Eileen Donahoe served as the first U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. Follow her at @EileenDonahoe