At an FCC broadband workshop entitled “International Lessons” held on August 18, Harvard Law School Professor and Faculty Co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society Yochai Benkler ’94 advised the FCC to look to other countries in formulating a national broadband strategy. (Watch a webcast of the workshop.)
What will “libraries” in 2075 look like? Can copyright law be re-engineered? Should we trust Google to make decisions in the public interest? Those were some of the questions discussed at a workshop entitled “Alternative Approaches to Open Digital Libraries in the Shadow of the Google Book Search Settlement,” which took place at Harvard Law School on July 31.
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Center for Research in Computation and Society (CRCS), based at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), have joined their fellowship programs for the 2009-2010 academic year. This collaboration will intensify both Centers’ exchanges across the University and stimulate multidisciplinary research efforts in areas ranging from ethics to economics.
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University will conduct an independent expert review of existing literature and studies about broadband deployment and usage throughout the world. This project will help inform the FCC’s efforts in developing the National Broadband Plan.
A major research project from Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society’s Internet and Democracy Project has lent enormous insight into the previously unexplored flow of online communication in the Middle East and North Africa. The study, “Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture and Dissent,” comes at a time of tremendous political unrest and electronic activism in the Middle East.
In March, coinciding with the one-year anniversary of a crackdown on protests in Tibetan regions in China, people across the PRC found they couldn’t access YouTube—which had hosted videos of the protests the year before.
The following op-ed “Reading Twitter in Tehran? Why the real revolution is on the streets — and offline” was co-written by HLS Professor John Palfrey, vice dean of the library and information resources at HLS and co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society; Berkman Research Director Robert Faris; and Bruce Etling, director of the Internet & Democracy Project at Berkman. Their op-ed appeared in the June 21 issue of The Washington Post.
For students looking for cutting-edge legal work in the realm of new technologies, there may be no better place than the Cyberlaw Clinic at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. In the fall of 2008, more than 40 students were involved in a wide range of projects that explored areas such as free speech, intellectual property and online child safety in the context of the Internet and other rapidly developing technologies. Many of the projects the center undertook involves issues being litigated for the first time.
Andrew McLaughlin ’94 has been named deputy chief technology officer for the Obama Administration. Most recently, McLaughlin served as head of global public policy for Google.
On May 5, Harvard Law School Professor Jonathan Zittrain ’95 was elected to a three-year term on the Internet Society’s Board of Trustees. A non-profit organization, the Internet Society seeks to provide leadership on internet related standards, education, and policy around the world.
