As the internet has increasingly been used to weaponize information, governments and technology companies have begun to grapple with new issues surrounding free expression and privacy.

Technology companies are being called upon to reshape their privacy and hate speech policies, and politicians are tackling the possibility  of  tech industry regulation.

Achieving both of those things, according to Eileen Donahoe, executive director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPI), is easier said than done.

“They all know that they need help,” Donahoe told Freeman Spogli Institute Director Michael McFaul on an episode of the World Class podcast. “Private-sector entities are looking for help from civil society and academics. And governments need help if for no other reason than they don’t always understand what’s going on in the platforms."

Free Speech Dilemma
Facebook and Google both have their own definitions of free speech, their own community values and their own terms of service, which they dictate to their billions of users. But their parameters of free expression are not always aligned with those of the U.S. government, Donahoe said.

“There’s an interplay between the rules of the platforms and the rules of the governments in which they operate, and that’s causing a lot of confusion,” she said. “We’re trying to help develop an appropriate metaphor for what these platforms are — some see themselves as a utility, some see them as editors and media. Whatever metaphor you pick, the rules and responsibilities that flow from it will be different. And we don’t have a metaphor yet.”

Over the last few years, tech companies have begun asking outsiders for help in developing norms for their platforms. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2018 that he was developing an “External Oversight Board” to help the company evaluate its community guidelines and for assistance with some of the content-based decisions on its platform.

Some companies are going as far as to call on the government for regulation, she said.

“They recognize that they’re not well suited to develop all of these norms for [their] platforms, which have such gigantic effects on society,” Donahoe said.

To Regulate or Not to Regulate
Several heads of technology companies have testified in front of the U.S. Senate this summer, including Zuckerberg, who answered questions about the company’s new cryptocurrency, and Karan Bhatia, Google's vice president for government affairs and public policy who testified on the question of whether Google’s search engine censors conservative media.

“Techlash” — the growing animosity toward large technology companies — has been on the rise, Donahoe said, and the government isn’t sure what their next steps are in handling these issues with the technology companies yet.

“So many congressional representatives and senators are a bit reticent to jump in,” she said. “They don’t want to undermine free expression, and they don’t want to destroy the American internet industry.”

Europe has already started  tackling this problem with the passage of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which standardizes data protection laws across all countries in the European Union.

Donahoe said that while she thinks the GDPR is a good move, there have been other laws passed in Europe, such as Germany’s Network Enforcement Act — which puts the liability on social media companies to censor the content on their respective platforms — that undermine free expression and democratic values.

“It shifts what we would normally consider democratic responsibility for assessing criminality to the private sector, and I find that problematic,” Donahoe said. “It’s a dangerous concept — a government is asking platforms to restrict content and be liable in a tort basis for content that is perceived to be harmful…it’s a very slippery slope.”

Related: Watch Eileen Donahoe’s interactive workshop on deep fakes at the June 2019 Copenhagen Democracy Summit

Eileen Donahoe served as the first U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. Follow her at @EileenDonahoe
 

Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering MARTIN HELLMAN recently served as the Heidelberg Lecturer at the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting (#LINO19).

The annual, week-long event occurs each summer on Germany’s Lindau Island. Nobel Laureates are invited to the meeting, along with selected young scientists. The Heidelberg Lecture is given by a Heidelberg Laureate—the winners of the top prizes in mathematics and computer science. Hellman became a Heidelberg Laureate when he received the ACM Turing Award in 2015 with fellow cybersecurity innovator WHITFIELD DIFFIE, a consulting scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, for making critical contributions to modern cryptography.

Hellman’s lecture, “The Technological Imperative for Ethical Evolution,” called for scientists and laureates to accelerate the trend toward more ethical behavior. Hellman drew parallels between global and personal relationships as a foundation to build trust and security – regardless of past adversarial history. He shared eight lessons from his own personal and professional evolution.

Martin encouraged #LINO19 attendees to revisit the Mainau Declaration of 1955 and the Mainau Declaration of 2015, underscoring the efforts of prior attendees – and the responsibilities of today’s attendees – to consider global and future consequences when making decisions and to appeal to decision-makers to do the same.

Hellman’s Heidelberg Lecture is available online.

The 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting drew 39 laureates and 600 young scientists from 89 countries – the highest number to date. The meeting was dedicated to physics. The key topics were dark matter and cosmology, laser physics and gravitational waves.

Hellman’s recent work has focused on rethinking national security, including bringing a risk informed framework to a potential failure of nuclear deterrence and then using that approach to find surprising ways to reduce the risk. His earlier work included co-inventing public key cryptography, the technology that underlies the secure portion of the internet. Besides the ACM Turing Award, Hellman’s many honors include election to the National Academy of Engineering.

One of his recent projects is a book written with his wife, Dorothie Hellman, “A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home and Peace on the Planet,” that one reviewer said provides a “unified field theory” of peace by illuminating the connections between nuclear war, conventional war, interpersonal war and war within our own psyches.

Congratulations to CISAC honors program Class of 2019! On June 14, students in the CISAC Interschool Honors Program in International Studies graduated in a conferral of honors ceremony on the front lawn of Encina Hall.

CISAC is proud to add our 11 new graduates to our expanding list of alumni. The CISAC honors program, launched in 2001, consists of a two-week honors college program in Washington D.C., tours of government agencies, meetings with influential policy makers, and weekly seminars with CISAC faculty. Honors students are also required to research and complete an original thesis on an important national security issue. The 2019 program was co-directed by Professors Martha Crenshaw and Coit “Chip” Blacker. The occasion marked their last year teaching in the program, as both are retiring this year.

The graduates are heading to a wide variety of careers, from graduate education to investment banking. A sample of this class’s upcoming plans includes:

• graduate degrees from Trinity College, Dublin, Harvard, Stanford, and Cambridge Universities;
• a position on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Minority staff;
• an assistant product manager at Schmidt Futures;
• a reporter at Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau; and
• an investment associate at Bridgewater Associates.
   

Several honors students also won awards for their outstanding work as undergraduates.

Philip Clark, ’19, won the Terman Award in Management Science & Engineering, the Kennedy Honors Thesis Prize, and the Hoefer Prize. The Terman Award is presented to the top five percent of each year's School of Engineering seniors. The Kennedy Prize is awarded annually to the single best thesis in each of the four areas of humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering and applied sciences. Recipients of this award have accomplished exceptionally advanced research in the field and have shown strong potential for publication in peer-reviewed scholarly works. The Hoefer Prize recognizes outstanding Stanford undergraduate writing in Writing in the Major courses

Andrew Milich, ’19, won the Terman Award in Computer Science and the William J. Perry Prize. The William J. Perry Prize is awarded by CISAC to a student for excellence in policy-relevant research in international security studies.

Kaylana Mueller-Hsia, ’19, won the John Holland Slusser World Peace Prize. The Slusser Prize is awarded by the John Holland Slusser World Peace Fund to the thesis that best demonstrates excellence in the analysis of one or more steps towards world peace.

Read below for more on this year’s graduates and their theses:

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Philip Clark

Climbing to “Strategic Commanding Heights”: Understanding Chinese Technology Investment in the United States

Thesis Advisor: Amy Zegart

"The rise of China ranks among the most important American foreign policy challenges. Philip’s path-breaking thesis finds that one of Beijing’s most powerful tools to secure commercial and military advantage is perfectly legal and largely overlooked: venture capital investment in American high-tech startups. The thesis creates and analyzes two original datasets linking Chinese venture capital investment to the technological priorities of the US and Chinese military. It uncovers patterns of investor ties to the Chinese Communist Party. And in two richly researched case studies, Philip develops a new theoretical model explaining when, why, and how China succeeded in surging its investment in a coordinated fashion. Philip has produced the best analysis of the topic yet written in the academy or government, and its implications are both important and unsettling."

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Alexa Corse

Election Cybersecurity: Assessing the Roles of Federalism and Partisanship

Thesis Advisor: Andrew Hall

"Securing America’s elections is one of the most pressing and salient policy challenges facing the country today. Why are we struggling to do it? A common narrative is that partisanship is to blame, but Alexa’s thesis raises important doubts about this account. Her thesis sheds light on the fiercely independent views of election administrators and their suspicion of national interventions into the electoral system, and, through a series of case studies, shows that this suspicion is likely more important than simple partisan disagreement in frustrating the federal government’s efforts to offer a unified approach to election security. In offering a masterful account of this process, Alexa’s thesis makes us rethink the problem of election security---no small feat for a thesis project, and an accomplishment she should take great pride in having achieved."

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Federico Derby

A Green Light at the End of Kim’s Dock? North Korea and International Cooperation on the Environment

Thesis Advisor: Siegfried Hecker

"Federico’s thesis on North Korea’s compliance with multinational environmental agreements is a tour de force. He conceived and developed a novel multispectral satellite imagery analysis technique to gather information on agreement compliance that is outside the reach of normal confirmation mechanisms in such a closed and isolated country. He combined this innovative technical approach with meticulously researched understanding of international environmental agreements to conclude that North Korea complied with such agreements when compliance supported the stability of the Kim regime. His study represents an outstanding example CISAC’s objectives of combining the best of the technical and social sciences."

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Jake Dow

A Path Dependent Prerogative: Why British Prime Ministers Gave Up Their War Powers

Thesis Advisor: Kenneth Schultz

"Jake’s thesis explains a remarkable development.  Before 2003, the British parliament had never taken a vote to authorize the use of military force before an operation commenced; the power to start a war was held by the Crown and delegated to the prime minister.  Starting with the Iraq War in 2003, however, every use of British military force has been preceded by a parliamentary vote. By examining parliamentary debates and reports, public statements, and government documents, Jake shows how a decision made for short-term political benefit in 2003 unexpectedly led to a durable change in how war powers are wielded.  The unprecedented vote on Iraq changed beliefs about the legitimate role of parliament, leading subsequent PMs to expect political risks from acting approval. Jake’s thesis is an excellent example of careful research presented through compelling historical narrative."

Megan Haines

The French Fourth Republic’s Decision to Build a Bomb: Prestige, Politics, and Alliances

Thesis Advisor: Coit Blacker

"The decision by French policymakers to acquire nuclear weapons is said to reflect France’s determination to restore the country’s prestige and to assure its great-power status following its defeat and occupation in World War II.  In this carefully researched and insightful thesis, Megan presses beyond this conventional wisdom to determine what role other factors may have played in France’s decision “to go nuclear.”  She finds that while prestige did in fact constitute a kind of permissive condition, two other factors – France’s deep suspicions about the commitment of its NATO allies to come the country’s defense and the determination of conservative politicians to press ahead with nuclearization – provide a valuable lens through which to view and understand the decision.  It’s a fascinating story, told with a keen sensitivity to the highly contingent way in which the French nuclear weapons program unfolded and the many obstacles that both civilian and military decisionmakers faced in achieving their goal."

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Katherine Irajpanah

War Power Moves: Executive Incentives for Unilateral Action

Thesis Advisors: Condoleezza Rice and Kenneth Schultz; Robert Rakove

"Katherine’s thesis wrestles with a core challenge in today’s foreign policy debates: who has the power to wage war? If policy-makers want to know how Congress can constrain America’s growing military footprint, they will be well-served by this important piece of research. I have advised numerous theses in my career. Katherine’s is among the two or three best that I have seen in 30 years. Not only is the product good, but she has tackled it with rigor and enthusiasm. She is a superlative student and full of exceptional promise as she heads to Harvard for graduate school."

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Irene Kim

Keen to Screen: The European Union Response to Growing Chinese Investment

Thesis Advisors: Martha Crenshaw, Christophe Crombez

“In her Honors Thesis ‘Keen to Screen: the European Union Response to Growing Chinese Investment’ Irene Kim presents a thorough analysis of the EU’s efforts to develop a framework for the screening of foreign direct investment in the EU. The thesis examines the divergent opinions and interests that are typically at play in international politics and EU decision-making, in this case concerns for national security, protectionist impulses, the desire to grow and attract foreign investment, and free-trade economic liberalism. Irene clearly shows how the new framework represents a rather toothless compromise that reflects these rivaling concerns, and can thus be considered a glass half empty, or half full."

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Andrew Milich

Free, Open-Source, and Anonymous: Why Deep Learning Regulators Are in Deep Water

Thesis Advisor: Amy Zegart

"Artificial intelligence provokes fear and wonder in equal measure – conjuring the specter of killer robots and the promise of driverless cars. Andrew’s thesis examines the spread of one aspect of AI breakthroughs: deep learning facial recognition technology. He asks two critical questions: what does the proliferation process of deep learning look like? And what can be done to prevent its malicious use? Andrew offers the first-ever analysis of deep learning proliferation. He compares deep learning to other dual-use technologies such as nuclear and chemical weapons. And he develops an award-winning technical model that undermines the accuracy of facial recognition applications. Andrew finds that past approaches like export controls are unlikely to curb the spread of deep learning, but technical countermeasures hold considerable promise to protect privacy and mitigate the risks of this technology. The thesis makes cutting-edge contributions to both engineering and policy and is poised to garner significant attention among senior U.S. officials."

Kaylana Mueller-Hsia

Servers and Sovereignty: Explaining the Rise of Data Localization Laws

Thesis Advisors: Andrew Grotto, David Cohen

"Kaylana's thesis explored why some democracies mandate that certain data be stored within their national borders, despite compelling economic and other reasons for why these data localization mandates can harm their citizens and businesses. These data localization practices are becoming more common internationally, creating new challenges for governments, civil society and businesses. Kaylana made original contributions to our understanding of how notions of sovereignty, under the right conditions, can influence governments' evaluation of the pros and cons of data localization. I couldn't be prouder of the efforts she put into this thesis and the final work product."

Elizabeth Shneider

The Iranian Rubik’s Cube: Understanding the Impacts of Pressure, Engagement, and Domestic Determinants on Nuclear Negotiations with Iran

Thesis Advisors: Colin Kahl, Tess Bridgeman

"Under what conditions can states with profound conflicts of interest and deep historical enmity reach a peaceful accommodation? Elizabeth’s terrific thesis draws on a wide range of primary and secondary source material and an impressive series of interviews to explain how nuclear negotiations succeeded in producing the Iran Nuclear Deal after more than a decade of failed negotiations. She convincingly rebuts the conventional wisdom that U.S.-led sanctions were sufficient to produce a deal. Instead, she persuasively argues that it required a combination of five factors—economic pressure, broad international diplomatic isolation of Iran, a willingness to compromise, a prioritization of direct engagement, and a conducive domestic political environment in both countries—that finally produced an agreement. The absence of one or more of these factors frustrated nuclear diplomacy prior to 2013-2015 and, today, it suggests that President Trump’s current policy of “maximum pressure” toward Iran is unlikely to produce a “better deal."

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Matthew Bryan Wigler

Compact and Consensus: American Foreign Policy and the Partisan Tide at the Water’s Edge

Thesis Advisor: Colin Kahl

"For decades, even as political polarization and partisanship has grown the United States, it was presumed that this divide had less impact on foreign policy than domestic affairs. Matthew’s excellent thesis questions that assumption. It draws the crucial distinction between ideological polarization, on the one hand, and affective polarization, on the other. Through detailed case studies, Matthew convincingly traces the rise and fall of U.S. foreign policy consensus and compact over the past seven decades. His analysis shows that today, neither ideological or personal clashes stop at the water’s edge, contributing to an erosion of support for liberal internationalism and a profound dysfunction in contemporary U.S. foreign policy."

A group of more than 100 leading American Asia specialists, former U.S. officials and military officers, and foreign policy experts has signed an open letter calling on President Trump and Congress to develop a U.S. approach to China that is focused on creating enduring coalitions with other countries in support of economic and security objectives rather than on efforts to contain China’s engagement with the world.

The signatories include five FSI scholars: Shorenstein APARC Fellow Thomas Fingar, Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow David M. Lampton, FSI Senior Fellow and APARC’s China Program Director Jean C. Oi, CISAC Senior Fellow Scott D. Sagan, and FSI Senior Fellow Andrew G. Walder.

In the letter, published in the Washington Post, the signatories express their concern about the growing deterioration in U.S.-China relations and outline several elements of what they describe as a more effective U.S. policy toward China.

China’s troubling behavior in recent years, the signatories write, presents serious challenges that require a firm U.S. response. The best American strategy “is to work with our allies and partners to create a more open and prosperous world in which China is offered the opportunity to participate.”

China’s engagement in the international system is essential to the system’s survival, argue the signatories, and “efforts to isolate China will simply weaken those Chinese intent on developing a more humane and tolerant society.”

Read the full letter in the Washington Post.

The views expressed by the signatories to the open letter are their own and are not opinion or information of Stanford University or of FSI.