The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society is a research center at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

that focuses on the study of

cyberspace Cyberspace is an interconnected digital environment. It is a type of virtual world popularized with the rise of the Internet. The term entered popular culture from science fiction and the arts but is now used by technology strategists, security ...

. Founded at

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

, the center traditionally focused on internet-related legal issues. On May 15, 2008, the center was elevated to an interfaculty initiative of Harvard University as a whole. It is named after the Berkman family. On July 5, 2016, the center added "Klein" to its name following a gift of $15 million from Michael R. Klein.

History and mission

The center was founded in 1996 as the "Center on Law and Technology" by

Jonathan Zittrain Jonathan L. Zittrain (born December 24, 1969) is an American professor of cyber law, Internet law and the George Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School. He is also a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, a professor of co ...

and Professor Charles Nesson. This was built on previous work including a 1994 seminar they held on legal issues involving the early Internet. Professor Arthur Miller and students David Marglin and Tom Smuts also worked on that seminar and related discussions. In 1997, the Berkman family underwrote the center, and

Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence "Larry" Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American legal scholar and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvar ...

joined as the first Berkman professor. In 1998, the center changed its name to the "Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School." Since then, it has grown from a small project within

to a major interdisciplinary center at Harvard University. The Berkman Klein Center seeks to understand how the development of Internet-related technologies is inspired by the social context in which they are embedded and how the use of those technologies affects society in turn. It seeks to use the lessons drawn from this research to inform the design of Internet-related law and pioneer the development of the Internet itself. The Berkman Klein Center sponsors Internet-related events and conferences, and hosts numerous visiting lecturers and research fellows. Members of the center teach, write books, scientific articles,

weblog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

s with RSS 2.0 feeds (for which the Center holds the specification), and

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

s (of which the first series took place at the Berkman Klein Center). Its newsletter, ''The Buzz'', is on the Web and available by e-mail, and it hosts a blog community of Harvard faculty, students, and Berkman Klein Center affiliates. The Berkman Klein Center faculty and staff have also conducted major public policy reviews of pressing issues. In 2008, John Palfrey led a review of child safety online called the Internet Safety Technical Task Force. In 2009,

Yochai Benkler Yochai Benkler ( ; born 1964) is an Israeli-American author and the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. He is also a faculty co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Univers ...

led a review of United States broadband policy. In 2010, Urs Gasser, along with Palfrey and others, led a review of Internet governance body

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several dat ...

, focusing on transparency, accountability, and public participation.

Projects and initiatives

The Berkman Klein Center's main research topics are Teens and Media, Monitoring,

Privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

Digital art Digital art, or the digital arts, is artistic work that uses Digital electronics, digital technology as part of the creative or presentational process. It can also refer to computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960 ...

Internet Governance Internet governance is the effort by governments, the private sector, civil society, and technical actors to develop and apply shared principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures that shape the evolution and use of the Internet. This ...

Cloud Computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

and Internet censorship. The Berkman Klein Center supports events, presentations, and conferences about the Internet and invites scientists to share their ideas.

Lumen

Lumen, formerly Chilling Effects, is a collaborative archive created by Wendy Seltzer that allows recipients of cease-and-desist notices to submit them to the site and receive information about their legal rights and responsibilities.

Digital Media Law Project

The Digital Media Law Project (DMLP) was a project hosted by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. It had previously been known as the Citizen Media Law Project. The purposes of the DMLP were: # To provide resources and other assistance, including legal assistance , to individuals and groups involved in online and citizen media. # To ensure "online journalists, media organizations, and their sources are allowed to examine and debate network security and data protection vulnerabilities without criminal punishment, in order to inform citizens and lawmakers about networked computer security." # To facilitate the participation of citizens in online media. # To protect the freedom of speech on the Internet. In 2014, Berkman Klein Center announced that it would "spin off its most effective initiatives and cease operation as a stand-alone project within the Berkman Klein Center."

Internet and Democracy Project

The Berkman Klein Center operated the now-completed Internet and Democracy Project, which describes itself as an:

StopBadware

In 2006, the center established the non-profit organization StopBadware, aiming to stop viruses, spyware, and other threats to the open Internet, in partnership with the

Oxford Internet Institute The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) serves as a hub for interdisciplinary research, combining social and computer science to explore information, communication, and technology. It is an integral part of the University of Oxford's Social Science ...

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, trading as Lenovo ( , zh, c=联想, p=Liánxiǎng), is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, personal computers, software, servers, conv ...

and

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

. In 2010, StopBadware became an independent entity supported by

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support E-commerce payment system, online money transfers; it serves as an electronic alter ...

, and

Mozilla Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...

Digital Public Library of America

The Digital Public Library of America is a project aimed at making a large-scale digital public library accessible to all.

Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence

In 2017, the BKC received a $27M grant with the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...

to "advance artificial intelligence research for the public good" and "to ensure automation and machine learning are researched, developed, and deployed in a way which vindicates social values of fairness, human autonomy, and justice."

Members

Fellows include or have included: * John Perry Barlow * Danah boyd * Amber Case * Kathy Pham *

Jacinda Ardern Dame Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern ( ; born 26 July 1980) is a New Zealand politician and activist who was the 40th prime minister of New Zealand and Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party, leader of the Labour Party from 2017 to 2023. She was ...

* John Clippinger * Yasodara Córdova * Primavera de Filippi * Tamar Frankel * Samer Hassan * Benjamin Mako Hill * Reynol Junco * Rebecca MacKinnon * James F. Moore * Mayo Fuster Morell *

Bruce Schneier Bruce Schneier (; born January 15, 1963) is an American cryptographer, computer security professional, privacy specialist, and writer. Schneier is an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Fellow at the Berkman ...

* Doc Searls * Wendy Seltzer *

Peter Suber Peter Dain Suber (born November 8, 1951) is an American philosopher specializing in the philosophy of law and open access to knowledge. He is a Senior Researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Director of the Harvard Office fo ...

Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known as Jimbo Wales, is an American List of Internet entrepreneurs, Internet entrepreneur and former Trader (finance), financial trader. He is a Founders of Wikipedia, co-founder of the non-profi ...

* David Weinberger * Dave Winer * Ethan Zuckerman * Mary L. Gray Faculty include: *

* William W. Fisher *

* Charles Nesson * John Palfrey *

* Alejandra Caraballo The center also has active groups of faculty associates, affiliates and alumni who host and participate in their projects each year.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Berkman Klein Center For Internet and Society Information technology research institutes Harvard Law School Computer law organizations Information society Internet governance advocacy groups Internet-related activism Research institutes established in 1998 1998 establishments in Massachusetts Harvard University research institutes