A First Amendment For Social Platforms
The great 21st-century platforms — Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, and the rest — have this year found themselves in the middle of the speech wars. Twitte…
Other Writing
The U.S. wants to maintain cross-border data flows. That may be tough.
"Karen Kornbluh, the former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), has a new cyber brief making the case for…
It’s important for SF to get body-camera rules for police right
After months of consideration, the San Francisco Police Commission approved rules Wednesday for use of the latest innovation sweeping law enforcement nationwide…
Opinion: The ugliest side of facial recognition technology
It's no mystery that big data presents a challenge to privacy. But perhaps more alarming is the emergence of technology that combines facial recognition and…
Spying on Muslims is bad policy
During the presidential primary, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz suggested increased surveillance and policing of Muslim neighborhoods in the United States. This suggestion…
Should You Be Allowed to Prevent Drones From Flying Over Your Property?
NO: It Is the Way to Kill Innovation By Ryan Calo The year is 1910. Orville and Wilbur Wright are testing their plane and happen to fly hundreds of feet over…
The Chinese government fakes nearly 450 million social media comments a year. This is why.
Internet researchers have long known that the Chinese government manipulates content on the Internet. Not only does it censor heavily, but it also employs hundr…
There Is No Such Thing as “Public” Data
Are you an OkCupid user? Would you consider the data on your profile public—fair game for anyone to download and share with the rest of the world? That’s the a…
How SecureDrop helps CPJ protect journalists
CPJ is proud to announce our instance of SecureDrop, the anonymous submission system engineered to resist even nation-state surveillance. In a time of unprecede…
This is how the new Captain America movie gets global politics wrong
The directors of Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War” say they wanted to create a movie that reflects some of the ambiguities of real-world politics. The movie…
Can technoheritage be owned?
In 1947, French statesman and novelist André Malraux, famously wrote about the concept of a “museum without walls.” The idea was simple, radical and beautiful:…
Trademark Officials Must Distinguish Between Irony and Offens
Years ago, Justice Frankfurter observed, “the protection of trademarks is the law's recognition of the psychological function of symbols,” noting, further,…