Rebecca MacKinnon is a writer, researcher, and advocate for human rights in digital environments.
She is author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom (2012) and is now thinking, writing and convening conversations about the future of freedom and democracy in the age of AI. From 2021-2025 she led global public policy advocacy for the Wikimedia Foundation and continues to serve on the board of Wikimedia Europe. In 2004 she co-founded the citizen media network Global Voices with Ethan Zuckerman while a fellow at the Berkman Center, and in 2013 founded Ranking Digital Rights, an organization that evaluates tech companies on respect for users’ rights.
She was a founding board member of the Global Network Initiative and served on the board for the Committee to Protect Journalists for ten years. She has also taught at the University of Hong Kong and the University of Pennsylvania, and held fellowships at Harvard (Shorenstein Center in 2004 and Berkman Center from 2004-2006), Princeton, and the University of California. Earlier in her career, she was CNN’s Bureau Chief and correspondent in Beijing and Tokyo between 1998-2004. She holds an AB from Harvard College and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.