Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society

According to recent findings from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, teens are sharing more information about themselves on social media sites than they have in the past, but they are also taking a variety of technical and non-technical steps to manage the privacy of that information.

In an age of fast-paced globalization, society does a great job moving people and products across borders, author Ethan Zuckerman said during a June 25 discussion sponsored by Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, “but we’re less good at moving bits across borders.”

CopyrightX, the new, experimental, Web-based Harvard Law School course which prioritizes the human dimension of online teaching, is the brainchild of Professor Terry Fisher, who is committed to what he calls the democratization of higher education.

Harvard Law School Professor Jonathan Zittrain '95 delivered the keynote speech at the recent Harvard IT Summit, devoting his lecture to the potential “end of .edu.” Zittrain is also a professor at Harvard Kennedy School, and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, as well as the co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

Harvard Law School has announced the appointment of Urs Gasser LL.M. ’03, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, as a Professor of Practice.

Scholars and social media experts convened at Harvard Law School Feb. 6 to examine the ways in which electronic interactive media can sway human decision-making and behavior. The conference, “Social Media and Behavioral Economics,” was sponsored by Harvard Law School's new Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy and created by the program’s director, Cass Sunstein ’78.

On Dec. 6-8, 2012, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, together with seven international co-organizers, hosted a symposium at Harvard Law School titled Internet-Driven Developments: Structural Changes and Tipping Points, convening representatives from Internet and society research centers spanning 5 continents and 22 countries.

The highly connected nature of today’s world has all sorts of benefits—but all sorts of potential costs as well, from loss of control of private data to a world financial system so intertwined that when one part of it falls, it’s hard to keep other parts from toppling along with it. In “Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems,” John Palfrey ’01 and Urs Gasser LL.M. ’03 draw on their work at the HLS Berkman Center for Internet & Society to start developing a “normative theory identifying what we want out of all this connectivity.”

Harvard Law School Professor Jonathan Zittrain has been named among the 100 Foreign Policy Global Thinkers for 2012.

A new report produced by Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and its Youth and Media Project in conjunction with Pew Research Center’s Internet and America Life Project explores issues surrounding parents, teens, and online privacy in an increasingly digital world.

The growing trade in exploits of software security has become a “market in digital weapons,” leaving people in the U.S. and abroad vulnerable to cyberattack, said Christopher Soghoian, Principal Technologist and Senior Policy Analyst at the ACLU, in an October 24th talk at Harvard Law School. “The entire industry, while it’s been in existence hasn’t received much sunlight,” said Soghoian, arguing that many regulators and policymakers do not even understand that the market exists. (Soghoian said that his talk, which was co-sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the Journal of Law and Technology, only reflected his views and not those of the ACLU.)

The highly connected nature of today’s world has all sorts of benefits—but all sorts of potential costs as well, from loss of control of private data to a world financial system so intertwined that when one part of it falls, it’s hard to keep other parts from toppling along with it. In “Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems,” John Palfrey ’01 and Urs Gasser LL.M. ’03 draw on their work at the HLS Berkman Center for Internet & Society to start developing a “normative theory identifying what we want out of all this connectivity.”

In late May, Harvard Law School Professor Jonathan Zittrain '95 was appointed chair of the Open Internet Advisory Committee. The committee was called for by the Federal Communications Commission to track and evaluate the effects of the FCC’s Open Internet rules and to provide recommendations to the FCC regarding policies and practices related to preserving the open Internet.

Two HLS students, Adam Gottesfeld '12 and Joey Seiler '12, recently won Rethink Music’s Genesis Project, a startup competition that aims to encourage and support creativity in the music industry. The duo will receive $10,000 in legal services from the firm Duane Morris, additional in-kind consulting and at least three meetings with venture capitalists.

Harvard Law School Professor John Palfrey ’01 and Urs Gasser LL.M. '03, lecturer on law and executive director of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, launched their latest book, Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems, at a May 30 event hosted by the Berkman Center, the Harvard Law School Library and the Harvard Book Store.

Pop sensation Lady Gaga launched her anti-bullying, youth-empowering Born This Way Foundation (BTWF) at Sanders Theatre on Wednesday during an Askwith Forum sponsored by the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). The foundation was established in partnership with HGSE, Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the California Endowment. Special guests included Oprah Winfrey, author and speaker Deepak Chopra, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen G. Sebelius, and Harvard Law School professor Charles J. Ogletree.

A new study produced by Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Give Foundation, examines a new cohort of charitable givers—those who make donations via text message from their cellphones.

In a recent paper published in the December issue of Science magazine, Harvard Law School Professors Jonathan Zittrain ‘95 and John Palfrey ’01 examine how better forms of measurement of the Internet and the Web can inform Internet policy and regulations.

How can technology help people gain better and easier access to the judicial system? Are there new technologies—or more efficient ways of using existing ones—that can assist low-income, pro se and other litigants to navigate the legal system while easing the burden on underresourced courts?