The Berkman Center enthusiastically shares an article from Faculty Co-Directors John Palfrey and Jonathan Zittrain on "Better Data for a Better Internet," published in this month's edition of Science. The piece explores how current debates and discussions about Internet policy can be more effectively informed by better data and research methods.
You can find the full text of the article here <http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/334/6060/1210?ijkey=yLssWDbbr0ekI&keytype=ref&siteid=sci> and on newsstands.
From "Better Data for a Better Internet":
Decisions about when and how to regulate activities online will have a profound societal impact. Debates underlying such decisions touch upon fundamental problems related to economics, free expression, and privacy. Their outcomes will influence the structure of the Internet, how data can flow across it, and who will pay to build and maintain it. Most striking about these debates are the paucity of data available to guide policy and the extent to which policymakers ignore the good data we do have.
Related work from John Palfrey, Jonathan Zittrain, and the Berkman Center can be found via these resources:
- Project: OpenNet Initiative
- Project: Herdict
- Paper: "Why parents help their children lie to Facebook about age: Unintended consequences of the ‘Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act"
- iLaw: New Methods for New Technologies
Congratulations to John and Jonathan on this achievement, for continuing to engage new constituencies across disciplines.
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Additional coverage can be found here:
- Setting smart Internet policy requires data we don't have, aren't getting (Ars Technica)
- HLS Professors Push for Data-Use in Internet Policy (Harvard Crimson)