On May 20th please join us for Perspectives on Science Communication, Misinformation, and the COVID-19 Infodemic, featuring University of Washington scholars Kate Starbird, Jevin West and Ryan Calo, in conversation with Cyber Policy Center Director Kelly Born, as they discuss a new project exploring how scientific findings and science credentials are mobilized in the spread of misinformation.

Kate Starbird and Jevin West will present emerging research into how scientific findings and science credentials are mobilized within the spread of false and misleading information about COVID-19. Ryan Calo will explore proposals to address COVID-19 through information technology—the subject of a recent Senate Commerce hearing at which he testified—with particular attention to the ways contact tracing apps could prove a vector for misinformation and disinformation. 

May 20, 10am-11am (PST)
Join via Zoom 

Kate Starbird is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) and Director of the Emerging Capacities of Mass Participation (emCOMP) Laboratory. She is also adjunct faculty in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and the Information School and a data science fellow at the eScience Institute. 

Kate's research is situated within human-computer interaction (HCI) and the emerging field of crisis informatics — the study of how information-communication technologies (ICTs) are used during crisis events. Her research examines how people use social media to seek, share, and make sense of information after natural disasters (such as earthquakes and hurricanes) and man-made disasters (such as acts of terrorism and mass shooting events). More recently, her work has shifted to focus on the spread of disinformation in this context. 

Ryan Calo is the Lane Powell and D. Wayne Gittinger Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of Law. In addition to co-founding the UW Center for an Informed Public, he is a faculty co-director (with Batya Friedman and Tadayoshi Kohno) of the UW Tech Policy Lab---a unique, interdisciplinary research unit that spans the School of Law, Information School, and Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering where Calo also holds courtesy appointments. Calo is widely published in the area of law and emerging technology. 

Jevin West is an Associate Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington. He is the co-founder of the DataLab and the new Center for an Informed Public at UW. He holds an Adjunct Faculty position in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and Data Science Fellow at the eScience Institute. His research and teaching focus on misinformation in and about science. He develops methods for mining the scientific literature in order to study the origins of disciplines, the social and economic biases that drive these disciplines, and the impact the current publication system has on the health of science. 

Kelly Born is the Executive Director of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. The center’s research and teaching focuses on the governance of digital technology at the intersection of security, geopolitics and democracy. Born collaborates with the center’s program leaders to pioneer new lines of research, policy-oriented curriculum, and outreach to key decision-makers globally. Prior to joining Stanford, Born helped to launch and lead The Madison Initiative at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic undertakings working to reduce polarization and improve U.S. democracy. There, she designed and implemented strategies focused on money in politics, electoral reform, civic engagement and digital disinformation. Kelly earned a master’s degree in international policy from Stanford University. 

A recording of this event can be found here (YouTube recording)

National AI Strategies and Human Rights: New Urgency in the Era of COVID-19, takes place Wednesday, May 6th, at 10am PST with Eileen Donahoe, the Executive Director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi) at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center and Megan Metzger, Associate Director for Research, also at GDPi. Joining them will be Mark Latonero, Senior Researcher at Data & Society, Richard Wingfield, from Global Partners Digital, and Gallit Dobner, Director of the Centre for International Digital Policy at Global Affairs Canada. The session will be moderated by Kelly Born, Executive Director of the Cyber Policy Center.   

The seminar will focus on the recently published report, National Artificial Intelligence Strategies and Human Rights: A Review, produced by the Global Digital Policy Incubator at Stanford and Global Partners Digital - and will also provide an opportunity to look at how the COVID-19 crisis is impacting human rights and digital technology work more generally.   

We will also be jointly hosting a webinar with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies on May 8th at 1pm PST, with experts from around the center and institute discussing emerging research on Covid-19, and the implications to future cyber policies, as well as the upcoming elections. More information on the May 8th event, can be found here.   

May 6, 10am-11am (PST)  
Join via Zoom

 
Eileen Donahoe is the Executive Director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPI) at Stanford University, FSI/Cyber Policy Center. GDPI is a global multi-stakeholder collaboration hub for development of policies that reinforce human rights and democratic values in digitized society. Areas of current research: AI & human rights; combatting digital disinformation; governance of digital platforms. She served in the Obama administration as the first US Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, at a time of significant institutional reform and innovation. After leaving government, she joined Human Rights Watch as Director of Global Affairs where she represented the organization worldwide on human rights foreign policy, with special emphasis on digital rights, cybersecurity and internet governance. Earlier in her career, she was a technology litigator at Fenwick & West in Silicon Valley. Eileen serves on the National Endowment for Democracy Board of Directors; the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity; the World Economic Forum Future Council on the Digital Economy; University of Essex Advisory Board on Human Rights, Big Data and Technology; NDI Designing for Democracy Advisory Board; Freedom Online Coalition Advisory Network; and Dartmouth College Board of Trustees. Degrees: BA, Dartmouth; J.D., Stanford Law School; MA East Asian Studies, Stanford; M.T.S., Harvard; and Ph.D., Ethics & Social Theory, GTU Cooperative Program with UC Berkeley. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

   
Megan Metzger is a Research Scholar and Associate Director for Research at the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi) Program. Megan’s research is focused on how changes in technology change how individuals and states use and have access to information, and how this affects protest and other forms of political behavior. Her dissertation was focused primarily on the role of social media during the EuroMaidan protests in Ukraine. She has also worked on projects about the Gezi Park protests in Turkey, and has ongoing projects exploring Russian state strategies of information online. In addition to her academic background, Megan has spent a number of years studying and working in the post-communist world. Her scholarly work has been published in The Journal of Comparative Economics and Slavic Review. Her analysis has also been published in the Monkey Cage Blog at The Washington Post, The Huffington Post and Al Jazeera English.

 
Mark Latonero is a Senior Researcher at Data & Society focused on AI and human rights and a Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Previously he was a research director and research professor at USC where he led the Technology and Human Trafficking Initiative. He has also served as innovation consultant for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Dr. Latonero works on the social and policy implications of emerging technology and examines the benefits, risks, and harms of digital technologies, particularly in human rights and humanitarian contexts. He has published a number of reports on the impact of data-centric and automated technologies in forced migration, refugee identity, and crisis response.  

 
Richard Wingfield provides legal and policy expertise across Global Partners Digital's portfolio of programs. As Head of Legal, he provides legal and policy advice internally at GPD and to its partner organizations on human rights as they relate to the internet and digital policy, and develops legal analyses, policy briefings and other resources for stakeholders. Before joining GPD, Richard led on policy development and advocacy at the Equal Rights Trust, an international human rights organization working to combat discrimination and inequality. He has also undertaken research for the Bar Human Rights Committee and Commonwealth Lawyers Association, the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights and provided support during the preparatory work for the Yogyakarta Principles.  
 
Gallit Dobner is Director of the Centre for International Digital Policy at Global Affairs Canada, with responsibility for the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism to counter foreign threats to democracy as well as broader issues at the intersection of foreign policy and technology. She formerly served as Political Counsellor in The Hague, where she was responsible for bilateral relations and the international courts and tribunals (2015-19), and in Algiers (2010-12). Gallit has also served as Deputy Director at Global Affairs Canada for various international security files, including Counter Terrorism, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. Prior to this, Gallit was a Middle East analyst at Canada’s Privy Council Office. Gallit has a Masters in Political Science from McGill University and Sciences PO. 

 
Kelly Born is the Executive Director of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. The center’s research and teaching focuses on the governance of digital technology at the intersection of security, geopolitics and democracy. Born collaborates with the center’s program leaders to pioneer new lines of research, policy-oriented curriculum, and outreach to key decision-makers globally. Prior to joining Stanford, Born helped to launch and lead The Madison Initiative at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic undertakings working to reduce polarization and improve U.S. democracy. There, she designed and implemented strategies focused on money in politics, electoral reform, civic engagement and digital disinformation. Kelly earned a master’s degree in international policy from Stanford University. 

The Stanford Cyber Policy Center continues its online Zoom series: Digital Technology and Democracy, Security & Geopolitics in an Age of Coronavirus. These webinars will take place every other Wednesday at 10am PST. 

The next event, Improving Journalistic Coverage in the Digital Age: From Covid-19 to the 2020 Elections, will take place Wednesday, April 22, at 10am PST with Andrew Grotto, from the Cyber Policy Center's Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance, Janine Zacharia, from Stanford's Department of Communication and Joan Donovan, from Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government, in conversation with Kelly Born, Executive Director of the Cyber Policy Center. 

Grotto and Zacharia will be discussing their recent report How to Report Responsibly on Hacks and Disinformation. Recognizing that reporters are targeted adversaries of foreign and domestic actors, especially during an election year, the report provides recommendations and actionable guidance, including a playbook and a repeatable, enterprise-wide process for implementation. Donovan will discuss health misinformation, COVID-19, and how this relates to disinformation around the 2020 elections, the US census and beyond. 

Join us on April 22nd for the next talk in this enlightening series. You can also watch our April 8th seminar, Digital Disinformation and Health: From Vaccines to the Coronavirus.  

April 22, 10am-11am (PST) 
Join via Zoom link 
 
Janine Zacharia is the Carlos Kelly McClatchy Lecturer in Stanford’s Department of Communication. In addition to teaching journalism courses at Stanford, she researches and writes on the intersection between technology and national security, media trends and foreign policy. Earlier in her career, she reported extensively on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy including stints as Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the Washington Post, State Department Correspondent for Bloomberg News, Washington Bureau Chief for the Jerusalem Post, and Jerusalem Correspondent for Reuters. 


 
Andrew Grotto is director of the Program on Geopolitics, Technology and Governance and William J. Perry International Security Fellow at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center and teaches the gateway course for graduate students specializing in cyber policy in Stanford’s Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He served as Senior Director for Cyber Policy on the National Security Council in both the Obama and the Trump White House. 

Dr. Joan Donovan is Director of the Technology and Social Change (TaSC) Research Project at the Shorenstein Center. Dr. Donovan leads the field in examining internet and technology studies, online extremism, media manipulation, and disinformation campaigns. Dr. Donovan's research and teaching interests are focused on media manipulation, effects of disinformation campaigns, and adversarial media movements. This fall, she will be teaching a graduate-level course on Media Manipulation and Disinformation Campaigns (DPI-622) with a focus on how social movements, political parties, governments, corporations, and other networked groups engage in active efforts to shape media narratives and disrupt social institutions.

 
Kelly Born is the Executive Director of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center, where she collaborates with the center’s program leaders to pioneer new lines of research, policy-oriented curriculum, policy workshops and executive education. Prior to joining Stanford, she helped to launch and lead The Madison Initiative at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic undertakings working to reduce polarization and improve U.S. democracy. There, she designed and implemented strategies focused on money in politics, electoral reform, civic engagement and digital disinformation. Kelly earned a master’s degree in international policy from Stanford University.

Links to Event Materials:

• Professor David Broniatowski's Slides 

The Stanford Cyber Policy Center continues its online Zoom series: Digital Technology and Democracy, Security & Geopolitics in an Age of Coronavirus. These webinars will take place every other Wednesday at 10am PST. 

The next event, Digital Disinformation and Health: From Vaccines to the Coronavirus, will take place Wednesday, April 8, at 10am PST with Kelly Born, Executive Director of the Cyber Policy Center, in conversation with Professor David Broniatowski, from George Washington University, Professor Kathleen M. Carley, from Carnegie Mellon University, and Professor Jacob N. Shapiro, from Princeton University. 

In particular, Professor Broniatowski will discuss the results of new studies regarding bots and trolls in the vaccine debate, as well as what makes messages go viral from the standpoint of Fuzzy Trace Theory. Professor Carley will explore how information moves from country to country, with a look at both the differences in who is broadcasting certain types of disinformation and the role bots play in the spread. Professor Shapiro will speak to trends and themes we are seeing in coronavirus disinformation narratives and in news reporting on COVID-related misinformation.

 
Professor David Broniatowski conducts research in decision-making under risk, group decision-making, system architecture, and behavioral epidemiology. This research program draws upon a wide range of techniques including formal mathematical modeling, experimental design, automated text analysis and natural language processing, social and technical network analysis, and big data. Current projects include a text network analysis of transcripts from the US Food and Drug Administration's Circulatory Systems Advisory Panel meetings, a mathematical formalization of Fuzzy Trace Theory -- a leading theory of decision-making under risk, derivation of metrics for flexibility and controllability for complex engineered socio-technical systems, and using Twitter data to conduct surveillance of influenza infection and the resulting social response. 
 
Professor Kathleen M. Carley is Director of the Center for Informed Democracy and Social-cybersecurity (IDeaS) and the director of the center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (CASOS). She specializes in network science, agent-based modeling, and text-mining within a complex socio-technical system, organizational and social theory framework. In her work, she examines how cognitive, social and institutional factors come together to impact individual, organizational and societal outcomes. Using this lens she has addressed a number of policy issues including counter-terrorism, human and narcotic trafficking, cyber and nuclear threat, organizational resilience and design, natural disaster preparedness, cyber threat in social media, and leadership.   
 
Professor Jacob N. Shapiro is professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and directs the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, a multi-university consortium that compiles and analyzes micro-level data on politically motivated violence in countries around the world. His research covers conflict, economic development, and security policy. He is author of The Terrorist’s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations and co-author of Small Wars, Big Data: The Information Revolution in Modern Conflict. His research has been published in broad range of academic and policy journals as well as a number of edited volumes. He has conducted field research and large-scale policy evaluations in Afghanistan, Colombia, India, and Pakistan.

Kelly Born is the Executive Director of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center, where she collaborates with the center’s program leaders to pioneer new lines of research, policy-oriented curriculum, policy workshops and executive education. Prior to joining Stanford, she helped to launch and lead The Madison Initiative at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic undertakings working to reduce polarization and improve U.S. democracy.  There, she designed and implemented strategies focused on money in politics, electoral reform, civic engagement and digital disinformation. Kelly earned a master’s degree in international policy from Stanford University.

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Nancy Okail is a visiting scholar at CDDRL. She has 20 years of experience working on issues of democracy, rule of law, human rights, governance and security in the Middle East and North Africa region. She analyzes these issues and advocates in favor of human rights through testimony to legislative bodies, providing policy recommendations to senior government officials in the U.S. and Europe. She is currently the president of the board of advisors of The Tahrir Institue for Middle East Policy (TIMEP), previously she was the Institute’s executive director since its foundation. Dr. Okail was the director of Freedom House’s Egypt program. She has also worked with the Egyptian government as a senior evaluation officer of foreign aid and managed programs for several international organizations. Dr. Okail was one of the 43 nongovernmental organization workers convicted and sentenced to prison in a widely publicized 2012 case for allegedly using foreign funds to foment unrest in Egypt. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Sussex in the UK; her doctoral research focused on the power relations of foreign aid. 

Abstract:

Ahmet T. Kuru will talk about his new book  Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Why do Muslim-majority countries have high levels of authoritarianism and low levels of socio-economic development in comparison to world averages? Kuru elaborates an argument about the ulema-state alliance as the cause of these problems in the Muslim world from the eleventh century to the present. Criticizing essentialist, post-colonialist, and new institutionalist alternative explanations, Kuru focuses on the relations between intellectual, economic, religious, and political classes in his own explanation.

Speaker Bio:

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The Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center cordially invites its faculty, scholars, staff, affiliates, and their families to join APARC's first International Potluck Day! Join us to celebrate the diversity of APARC through a multicultural smorgasbord of food. Bring a dish from your home country or family heritage to share with the APARC community as we take the time to mix, mingle, and celebrate the diversity that makes APARC special.

Due to current circumstances, we will be postponing this event until further notice. Thank you for your understanding.

The research on misinformation generally and fake news specifically is vast, as is coverage in media outlets. Two questions run throughout both the academic and public discourse: what explains the spread of fake news online, and what can be done about it? While there is substantial literature on who is likely to be exposed to and share fake news, these behaviors might not signal belief or effect. Conversely, there is far less work on who is able to differentiate between true and false stories and, as a result, who is most likely to believe fake news (or, conversely, not believe true news), a question that speaks directly to Facebook’s recent “community review” approach to combating the spread of fake news on its platform.

In his talk, Professor Tucker will report on initial findings from a new collaborative project between NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics and Stanford’s Program on Democracy and the Internet designed to fill these gaps in the scholarly literature and inform the types of policy decisions being made by Facebook. The project has enlisted both professional fact checkers and random “crowds” of close to 100 people to fact check five “fresh” articles (that have appeared in the past 24 hours) per day, four days a week, for eights week using an innovative transparent and replicable algorithm for selecting the articles for fact checking. He will report on initial observations regarding (a) individual determinants of fact checking proficiency; (b) the viability using the “wisdom of the crowds” for fact checking, including examining the tradeoffs between crafting a more accurate crowd vs. a more representative crowd and (c) results from experiments designed to assess potential policy interventions to improve crowdsourcing accuracy.

About the Speaker:

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