NOTE: This program was active from 2018-2021. The Center continues to work on issues relating to tech and platform regulation, which you can learn more about here: https://shorensteincenter.org/research-initiatives/tech-policy/
A handful of large digital platforms dominate the public space online. Every day, these platforms make decisions on a range of issues that affect the public sphere—including misinformation, hate speech, and digital advertising. The world’s leading technology firms – most of which are U.S. companies – today operate in a largely unregulated environment.
The Digital Platforms & Democracy Project at the Shorenstein Center aims to address these issues through expert analysis, research, and convenings of policy makers and experts in the field.
The project’s vision holds that a new approach to digital regulation is needed. The rules and regulatory bodies of yesterday are ill-equipped and unsuited to the rules of internet capitalism today. The regulatory approach must be tailored to the unique economic logic and incentive structures of the digital economy. It must be designed to not only protect competition, but to promote it in new markets. It must recognize the role of data as the currency of market control, and regulate it accordingly. It must compel platforms to proactively protect and promote their users’ data and privacy. Most of all, this approach must be flexible and adaptive; it must be capable of keeping pace with the very sector it is tasked with regulating.
The Digital Platforms & Democracy fellows are listed below. As of 2020/2021 academic year they are jointly affiliated with the Shorenstein Center and the Mossvar Rahmani Center for Business and Government.
Tom Wheeler (co-director), former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Philip Verveer, leading communications and anti-trust lawyer, former Senior Counsel to the FCC.
Gene Kimmelman, Senior Advisor and former President & CEO of Public Knowledge, consumer protection advocate.
Dipayan Ghosh, PhD, former tech policy advisor in the Obama White House and former privacy and public policy advisor at Facebook.
For a taste of what the Digital Platforms & Democracy team is working on, check out this video interview with Dipayan Gosh.
Publications:
New Digital Realities; New Oversight Solutions
August 20, 2020
Tom Wheeler, Phil Verveer, and Gene Kimmelman
The Commercialization of Decision-Making: Towards a Regulatory Framework to Address Machine Bias over the Internet
April 24, 2020
Dipayan Ghosh, Senior Fellow, Digital Platforms & Democracy Project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy
(originally published by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University)
Key Elements and Functions of a New Digital Regulatory Agency
February 12, 2020
Gene Kimmelman, Senior Fellow, Digital Platforms & Democracy Project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy
Countering Underinvestment in Prevention by Platform Companies
October 31, 2019
Philip Verveer, Senior Fellow, Digital Platforms & Democracy Project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy
Countering Negative Externalities in Digital Platforms
October 7, 2019
Philip Verveer, Senior Fellow, Digital Platforms & Democracy Project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy
The Right Way to Regulate Digital Platforms
September 19, 2019
Gene Kimmelman, Senior Fellow, Digital Platforms & Democracy Project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy
2019 Privacy Design Forecast
May 2019
Entries selected and edited by Stephanie Nguyen, Product Designer and Researcher and Masters in Public Policy student at the Kennedy School, and Hong Qu, Shorenstein Center Director of Technology.
Big Tech and Democracy: The Critical Role of Congress
April 23, 2019
By Staff and Fellows of the Shorenstein Center’s Platform Accountability Project and the Belfer Center’s Technology and Public Purpose Project
Platform Accountability: An Interim Measure
April 15, 2019
Philip Verveer, Visiting Fellow, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy
Platform Accountability and Contemporary Competition Law: Practical Considerations
November 20, 2018
Philip Verveer, Visiting Fellow, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy
The Root of the Matter: Data and Duty
November 1, 2018
Tom Wheeler, Senior Research Fellow, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School. 31st Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 2013-2017
Digital Deceit II: A Policy Agenda to Fight Misinformation on the Internet
October 2, 2018
Dipayan Gosh, Research Fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, and Ben Scott, Director of Policy & Advocacy, Omidyar Network
Time to Fix It: Developing Rules for Internet Capitalism
August 16, 2018
Tom Wheeler, Senior Research Fellow, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School
#DigitalDeceit: The Technologies Behind Precision Propaganda on the Internet
January 23, 2018
Dipayan Ghosh, Shorenstein Fellow, and Ben Scott, Senior Advisor to the Open Technology Institute at New America. Co-published by the New America Foundation and the Shorenstein Center.
