Berkman Center for Internet & Society

Berkman Luncheon Series

Internet Censorship and the Remembrance of Infowars Past

Jon Penney, Berkman Center Fellow

Jon Penney will explore the international law and politics of information wars past for lessons in Internet censorship resistance today.

Berkman Luncheon Series

The Next 27 Minutes Are An Experiment: Thoughts On The Fallout from Kony 2012

Ruha Devanesan, Executive Director of the Internet Bar Organization and Berkman Fellow

On March 5th, 2012, Invisible Children launched its "Kony 2012" campaign video on Youtube, a video that in six days was dubbed the most viral video in history. In this talk, Ruha Devanesan will explore the successes and failures of that campaign, the unprecedented public debate triggered by it, and the lessons learned and implemented by Invisible Children and other human rights organizations using social media as a tool for advocacy.

Berkman Luncheon Series

Invisible Users: Youth in the Internet Cafes of Urban Ghana

Jenna Burrell, Assistant Professor in the School of Information at UC Berkeley

Ghana, a small country on the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa, is the size of Oregon. Its entire population is only double that of New York City. Yet what is unfolding there, I argue, matters to the future of the Internet. New users are increasingly connecting from the margins of the global economy. This includes Ghanaian youth connecting from Accra’s numerous urban Internet cafes. The new global diversity online offers a more rigorous check on the ideals associated with the Internet in early cyber-utopian discourses.

Berkman Luncheon Series

Coding as a Liberal Art

Diana Kimball, Berkman Center Fellow

What is the purpose of a liberal arts education? Commencement speakers have assured generations of college graduates that the real value is less in what they've learned than in how they've learned to think. This talk will present a personal case study in learning to think through code. Along the way, it will argue that coding belongs not just on the periphery of the liberal arts, but at the center of a new canon. This event will be webcast live at 12:30PM ET.

Is School Enough?

A screening & conversation about youth and informal learning with digital media.

IS SCHOOL ENOUGH? While policy-makers and educational experts try to determine the best “system” for delivering a world-class education to tens of millions of students across the country, many young people are finding their own ways of expressing themselves, pursuing interests, and participating in communities that are both on and offline. Please join us for a preview screening of the new documentary that will be aired on PBS this spring followed by a panel discussion.

Berkman Luncheon Series

“LOIC Will Tear Us Apart”: The Impact of Tool Design and Media Portrayals in the Success of Activist DDOS Actions

Molly Sauter, Berkman Center for Internet & Society

This talk explores the role of tool design and media coverage in the relative success of Operation Payback and earlier activist Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) actions. This event will be webcast live at 12:30pm ET.