Event
Data and Democracy
A symposium considering how big data is changing our system of self-government
Online
Today, governments and private actors can collect, store, and continuously update vast troves of data. Yet we have barely begun to understand the impact on our democracy of large-scale data collection and the use of such data sets to make decisions that can dramatically impact individual lives and entire communities.
The Data and Democracy Symposium will investigate how technological advances relating to the collection, analysis, and manipulation of data are affecting democratic processes, and it will ask how the law must adapt to ensure the conditions for self-government. Organized by the Institute’s Senior Visiting Research Scholar, Yale Law Professor Amy Kapczynski, and co-sponsored by the Law and Political Economy Project at Yale Law School, the symposium will focus on three areas that are both central to democratic governance and directly affected by advancing technologies and ever-increasing data collection: 1) public opinion formation and access to information; 2) the formation and exercise of public power; and 3) the political economy of data.
Panel links are emailed to participants after they RSVP and are also available below along with other panel information.
Schedule
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Online
Welcome and Introductory Remarks
Watch introductory remarks here.
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Jameel Jaffer, Knight First Amendment Institute
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Amy Kapczynski, Yale Law and Political Economy Project; Knight First Amendment Institute
Theories of Democratic Regulation and Lawmaking in the Big Data Era
How do big data, artificial intelligence, and algorithmic governance influence our ability to govern ourselves democratically? Do new information technologies create new modalities or concentrations of power, and if so what should that mean for how we legislate and regulate? Does our technological landscape challenge conventional paradigms of governance that rely on individualized consent or that see markets as superior because of their ability to reflect and adapt to decentralized information? This panel will address these questions and explore the implications of increasingly data-intensive processes and technologies for how we understand political economy, privacy, and the regulatory state.
Watch panel here.
Panelists
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Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law School
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Kiel Brennan-Marquez, University of Connecticut School of Law
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Julie E. Cohen, Georgetown University Law Center
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Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Stanford Law and California Supreme Court
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Aziz Huq, University of Chicago School of Law
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Daniel Susser, Penn State University
Moderator
Amy Kapczynski, Yale Law and Political Economy Project; Knight First Amendment Institute
Public Will Formation and Big Data
Our changing capacities to capture, analyze, and manipulate data have potentially drastic implications for our ability to exercise self-government and to ensure a truly representative and participatory democracy. How do changes in how we think about and manipulate data change who we understand the public to be, and how it expresses its will? This panel will explore the social and political history of how data has been used for core political objectives like an accurate census count and voter mobilization efforts, how changing technological means to manipulate data are impacting inequality and stratification, and how law and policy should respond.
Watch panel here.
Panelists
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Dan Bouk, Colgate University
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danah boyd, Data & Society
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Bertrall Ross, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
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Douglas Spencer, University of Connecticut School of Law
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Ethan Zuckerman, University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Knight First Amendment Institute
Moderator
Katy Glenn Bass, Knight First Amendment Institute
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Online
Data Publicity and Public Control
Government actors are today allocating Medicaid resources, evaluating employees, conducting surveillance and criminal investigations, and making bail decisions using algorithmic and data-intensive approaches. These approaches often involve partnerships with private actors who control the development of the technology being used and the access to relevant data. This panel will contemplate whether the resulting systems can be reconciled with commitments to due process and nondiscrimination, what challenges they raise for accountability, and how courts, legislatures, and agencies should address those challenges to protect democratic prerogatives.
Watch panel here.
Panelists
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Margot Kaminski, University of Colorado Law and Silicon Flatirons
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Martin Murillo, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
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Frank Pasquale, Brooklyn Law School
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Wendy Wagner, University of Texas School of Law
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Rebecca Wexler, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
Moderator
Paul Ohm, Georgetown University Law Center
Engineering Access to Data and Algorithms
Concerns over the spread of disinformation, misinformation, and hate online have never been higher. Similarly, the ongoing adoption of AI and machine learning tools by local, state, and federal government has generated increasing pressure for public access to information about those tools and how they are being used. Journalists, researchers, and activists say they do not have sufficient ability to access the data and information needed to hold government and powerful companies to account. But these calls for more transparency and access often collide with objections by private companies that they cannot release more data to researchers and/or the public due to privacy concerns or because the information constitutes “trade secrets.” What approaches might help secure better access to privately held data for researchers and the public in practice? This panel will explore this question, and what it implies about the limits of traditional understandings of transparency and accountability.
Watch panel here.
Panelists
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Hannah Bloch-Wehba, Texas A&M University School of Law
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John Bowers, Harvard Berkman Klein Center
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evelyn douek, Harvard Law School and Harvard Berkman Klein Center
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Elaine Sedenberg, Harvard Berkman Klein Center and Facebook
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Mathias Vermeulen, AWO
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Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard University
Moderator
Alex Abdo, Knight First Amendment Institute
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Speakers
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Alex Abdo
Litigation Director, Knight Institute
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Julia Angwin
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Yochai Benkler
Harvard Law School; Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society
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Hannah Bloch-Wehba
Texas A&M University School of Law
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Dan Bouk
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John Bowers
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danah boyd
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Kiel Brennan-Marquez
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Julie E. Cohen
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Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar
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Evelyn Douek
Knight Institute Senior Research Fellow 2021-2022; Stanford Law School
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Katy Glenn Bass
Research Director, Knight Institute
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Aziz Z. Huq
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Jameel Jaffer
Executive Director, Knight Institute
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Margot Kaminski
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Amy Kapczynski
Knight Institute Senior Visiting Research Scholar, 2019-2020; Yale Law School
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Martin Murillo
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Paul Ohm
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Frank Pasquale
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Bertrall Ross
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Elaine Sedenberg
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Douglas Spencer
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Daniel Susser
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Mathias Vermeulen
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Wendy Wagner
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Rebecca Wexler
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Jonathan Zittrain
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Ethan Zuckerman
Knight Institute Visiting Research Scholar 2020-2021; University of Massachusetts at Amherst