Program Schedule

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

After introductions led by Terry Fisher, the day will begin with “The History of the Internet,” during which Jonathan Zittrain will introduce and discuss the “generative framework” of the Net, outlining the unique characteristics of Internet architecture that were critical to its success and continued evolution. Yochai Benkler will pick up related themes of openness, access, and distribution and their implications for user choice and online freedom in “Open Systems/Access,” during which WikiLeaks will be featured as a case to examine related issues.

After lunch, John Palfrey will lead “Online Liberty and Freedom of Expression,” which will take a focused look at the issues surrounding online freedom and the different types of control deployed by governments, users, companies, and other actors through a series of illustrative examples presented by audience members. Following this, a moderated discussion featuring selected faculty and guests will focus on the role of new technologies during recent protests in the Middle East and North Africa.

The first day of iLaw will wrap up with “From Theory to Practice: Featured Projects,” a conversation led by John Palfrey and featuring Wendy Seltzer of Chilling Effects, Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices, and others. iLaw participants are also invited to the Berkman Center’s Open House.

The History of the Internet

The day will begin with a brief history of the Net and an introduction to the theory of generativity as a framework to understand the Internet’s disruptive power. Jonathan Zittrain’s opening lecture will focus on the Internet’s technical evolution and underlying architecture; the values that informed its early development, including principles related to consensus, openness, and non-discrimination; and the range of players, from users to computer scientists, governments and other bodies, and corporations, who engaged in the various activities, controls, and other arrangements that formed the initial distributed digital governance of the online space.

Open Systems/Access

This session will discuss the enormous benefits of open systems and address the ways in which openness at all layers of the networked environment can be achieved. Yochai Benkler will present a set of examples in which physical access, social production of content, and other forms of user creation and collaboration play a powerful role in supporting freedom and new forms of innovation. From these examples, he will draw out how proprietary networks and standards (like mobile networks) differ from open ones (like TCP/IP, competitive infrastructure, free software, open standards, and free culture/content-based models). The case of WikiLeaks will provide a lens through which to view questions related to openness, access, and content distribution.

Online Liberty and Freedom of Expression

Led by John Palfrey, this session will expand on some of the core themes introduced in the preceding sessions by focusing on online liberty and freedom of expression and providing an overview of the different phases of content regulation on the Internet. The session will engage the audience with questions regarding the ways in which different political contexts shape different methods of and motivations for government control, and how different approaches in different countries inform each other. Respondents from the audience will be invited to comment on key issues, including different forms of government controls and online speech regulation: China (a mix of “traditional” technical filtering with legal and informal regulatory mechanisms); the Arab Spring (just-in-time filtering combined with the arrest and intimidation of bloggers and digital activists); Russia (mostly non-technical, second and third generation controls rather than technical filtering); and US/Western Europe (mostly focused on child pornography and the illegal spread of copyrighted content); the role of intermediaries in response to government requests for user information, content removal or account deactivation; and the implications of the current phase of control for free expression and privacy worldwide.

Exploring the Arab Spring

What has become known as the “Arab Spring” will serve as a synthesizing case study that will help to weave together the core themes outlined in both the Open Systems/Access and the Online Liberty and Freedom of Expression sessions, with a particular focus on the use of social media and the rise of information control and counter-control activities during recent protests and uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. In this highly interactive sessions, commentators will not only analyze the role of social media, but also consider the different roles and actors that influenced the events, including governments, activists, citizens, and companies.

From Theory to Practice: Featured Projects

The first day closing session will feature the founding members of a diverse set of projects – several of them incubated at the Berkman Center – that have taken on some of the key challenges related to openness and freedom agenda outlined in the earlier sessions. By bridging theory and practice of “cyberlaw”, this session will feature different platforms, strategies, and networks that leverage online tools as a means of both confronting challenges to liberty in the online space, and capitalizing on the new modes of connection, production, and distribution that it affords. Featured projects will include:

• Global Voices, which works with bloggers and translators from around the world to collect and curate reports from citizen media, with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media;
• Chilling Effects, which provides an online clearinghouse for tracking and analyzing DMCA takedown notices and other cease-and-desist notices sent to Internet users;
• Ushahidi, a platform which has been used as a tool to easily crowdsource information collection, interactive mapping, and data visualization, using multiple channels, including SMS, email, Twitter and the web, and others;
• Global Network Initiative, a multi-stakeholder group of companies, civil society organizations, investors, and academics who have created principles and a collaborative approach to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy in the ICT sector.
• Herdict, an online platform that crowdsources Internet users’ real-time reports of website inaccessibility and outages around the globe.

Evening Event: Berkman Center Open House

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All participants will be invited to share in an evening at the Berkman Center, where they will be introduced to projects, staff, fellows, and key research themes and activities.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The second day of iLaw will begin with a session focusing on the “The Changing Internet: Cybsecurity.” Building upon the previous day’s discussions, it will discuss the forces at play that may put values such as openness, autonomy, and diversity at risk. In conversation with Jonathan Zittrain, Jack Goldsmith will help to kick off the discussion by focusing on one of the key pressure points where values collide: cybersecurity issues.

“Intellectual Property,” a conversation led by Terry Fisher and featuring Charlie Nesson, will provide an introduction to another highly contested area of cyberlaw and policy, outlining some of the central IP issues and debates, including copyright, free and fair use, and the public domain. Emerging technological trends such as cloud computing will be explored in the context of IP theory and practice. The afternoon starts with a session on “User Innovation,” led by Eric von Hippel, who will explore innovation through the lens of user creativity and networked models of production and expression.

The pillar session on “Privacy,” led by John Palfrey and featuring Herbert Burkert, will start with a brief history of privacy, discussing the emergence of data protection law in Europe. Against this backdrop, recent US cases and controversies – including the Google Buzz and the Facebook Beacon settlements – will be used as case examples to explore the current state of privacy norms and laws – and their possible future.

The day will wrap up with a cross-sectional session that discusses the different approaches to the study of the Internet – including qualitative and quantitative methods – and their respective merits as well as limitations. More fundamentally, the session will explore as to what extent the Internet has led to methodological challenges – for instance in the context of the analysis of large data sets – and innovations, what types of best practices have developed over time, and what the open questions are.