Background Readings

Session 1: Why Technology Favors the Autocrat   

News Articles and Blogs

• Yuval Noah Harari, “Why Technology Favors Tyranny,” The Atlantic, October 2018.  
• Nicholas Wright, “How Artificial Intelligence Will Reshape the Global Order,” Foreign Affairs, July 2018.  
• Emily Sherwin, Kremlin Aims to Unplug Russian Internet from World Wide Web, DW Feb.12, 2019 
• Ian Bremmer, “Technology and the threat to democracy,” NZ Herald, March 8, 2019
• David Frum, “How to Build an Autocracy,” The Atlantic, March 2017.
• Ezra Klein, “How to stop an autocracy,” Vox, Feb. 7, 2017.
• Wojtek Grojec and Carlos Coelho, How Autocracy is Trending Again,  RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty,  August 23, 2018. 
• Yascha Mounk, “The Dictators’ Last Stand,” Foreign Affiars, September/October 2019.

Scholarly Publications 

• E.G. Rød, & N. B. Weidmann, (2015). “Empowering activists or autocrats? The Internet in authoritarian regimes,”  Journal of Peace Research, 52(3), 338–351. 
• Steven Feldstein, (2019). “The Road to Digital Unfreedom: How Artificial Intelligence is Reshaping Repression,” Journal of Democracy, 30(1), 40-52.  
• Seva Gunitsky, (2015). “Corrupting the Cyber-Commons: Social Media as a Tool of Autocratic Stability,”  Perspectives on Politics, 13(1), 42-54.  

Legal Sources 

• Cybersecurity Law of the People’s Republic of China                                                                                     

Book

• People vs Tech: How the internet is killing democracy (and how we can save it), Jamie Bartlett
  (Dutton 2018)

Session 2: The Tech Tools: The Means to an Authoritarian End  

News Articles and Blogs 

• Richard Fontaine & Kara Frederick, “The Autocrat’s New Tool Kit ,” Wall Street Journal, March 15, 2018. 
• Andy Greenberg, “How an Entire Nation Became Russia’s Test Lab for Cyberwar,” Wired, June 20, 2017.
• Andy Greenberg, “Hackers Gain Direct Access to US Power Grid Controls,” Wired, Sept. 6, 2017. 
• John Naughton, “Rule by Robots is Easy to Imagine-We’re Already Victims of Superintelligent Firms,”  The Guardian, November 25, 2018. 
• Declan Walsh & Nada Rashwan, “We’re at War’: A Covert Social Media Campaign Boosts Military Rulers,” The New York Times, Sept. 6, 2019.
• Nicholas Thompson and Ian Bremmer, “The AI Cold War That Threatens Us All,” Wired, October 23, 2019.
• Steve Levine, “Artificial intelligence is giving tyrants a brand new advantage,” Axios, October 14, 2018.
• Margaret Kosal & Heather Regnault, “Emerging Technologies and the Future of Warfare,” The Cipher Brief, November 7, 2019. 

Scholarly Publications 

• Nitil Govil & Anirban Kapil Baishya, “The Bully in the Pulpit: Autocracy, Digital Social Media, and Right-wing Populist Technoculture,” 11 Communication, Culture and Critique 67 (March 2018). 

Legal Sources 

• Summary of Sovereign Runet Law 

  

Session 3: The Case of China and its Progeny  

News Articles and Blogs 

• Chris Buckley & Paul Mozur, “How China Uses High-Tech Surveillance to Subdue Minorities,” The New York Times, May 22,2019.  
• Adam Segal, Why China Hacks the World, Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 31, 2016. 
• Mara Hvistendahl, China’s Hacker Army, Foreign Policy, Mar. 3, 2010. 
• Anna Mitchell & Larry Diamond, China’s Surveillance State Should Scare Everyone, The Atlantic, Feb. 2, 2018. 
• Edward Wong, “How China Uses LinkedIn to Recruit Spies Abroad,” The New York Times, August 27, 2019.
• Paul Mozur, Jonah M. Kessel and Melissa Chan, “Made in China, Exported to the World: The Surveillance State,” The New York Times, April 24, 2019.
• Charlie Campbell, “How China Is Using ‘Social Credit Scores’ to Reward and Punish Its Citizens,” Time Magazine, 2019.
• “China: Big Data Fuels Crackdown in Minority Region,” Human Rights Watch, February 26, 2018.
• Richard McGregor, “Party Man,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2019.  
• Joshua Eisenman & Devin T. Stewart, “China’s Global Critics Are Helping It Win,” Foreign Policy, Oct. 30, 2019.
• Christina Larson, “Who needs democracy when you have data?,” Technology Review, August 20, 2018.

Scholarly Publications 

• Hao Yeli, A Three-Perspective Theory of Cyber Sovereignty, 7 Prism 109.
• Elsia B. Kania and John K. Costello, Quantum Hegemony? China’s Ambitions and the Challenge to U.S. Innovation Leadership,  Center for a New American Security report, Sept. 2018. 
• Daniel Kliman and Abigail Grace, “Power Play Addressing China’s Belt and Road Strategy,” CNAS Report, Sept. 2018

Legal Sources 

• China’s Tech-Enhanced Authoritarianism – Dr. Samantha Hoffman’s written testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Hearing on “China’s Digital Authoritarianism: Surveillance, Influence, and Political Control” May 16, 2019 

 

Session 4: The Role of Policy Making and Legislation, and the Global Stage

News Articles and Blogs 

• Tom Kulik, Why the Active Cyber Defense Certainty Act is a Bad Idea, Above the Law, Jan. 29, 2018.
• Andrew Nelson, Cryptocurrency Regulation in 2018: Where the World Stands Right Now, Bitcoin Magazine, Feb. 1, 2018. 
• Timothy Egan, “Why Doesn’t Mark Zuckerberg Get It?,” The New York Times, October 25, 2019.
• “Do social media threaten democracy?,” The Economist, November 14, 2017
• Craig Timberg and Tony Romm, “It’s Not Just the Russians Anymore as Iranians and Others Turn Up Disinformation Efforts Ahead of 2020 Vote,” The Washington Post, July 25, 2019.
• Richard A. Clarke and Rob Knake, “The Internet Freedom League,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2019. 

Legal Sources 

• S.754 - Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015.
• H.R.4036 - Active Cyber Defense Certainty Act.  

 

Session 5: Media Response: Transparency, Outreach and Collaboration with Tech’s Private Sector

News Articles and Blogs

• Germany Starts Enforcing Hate Speech Law,  BBC, Jan. 1, 2018. 
• Lucinda Southern, Germany’s Law Against Hate Speech Faces Hurdles, Digiday, Jan. 3, 2018.
• Matt Burgess, Theresa May’s Fake News Unit is Just Another Naïve Plan for the Web, Wired, Jan. 24, 2018. 
• Government Announces Anti-Fake News Unit, BBC, Jan. 23, 2018.
• Michael-Ross Fiorentino, France Passes Controversial ‘Fake News’ Law, EuroNews, Nov. 22, 2018. 
• Lithuanians are using software to fight back against fake news, The Economist, Oct. 24, 2019. 
• Jacob Weisberg, “Bad News,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2019. 

Scholarly Publications 

• Dagmar Rychnovska & Martin Kohut, The Battle for Truth: Mapping the Network of Information: War Experts in the Czech Republic, 26 New Perspectives 57 (2018).  
• Crisis in Democracy:Renewing Trust in America, The Report of the Knight Commission on Trust, Media, and Democracy 

Legal Sources 

• Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, “Tackling Online Disinformation: A European Approach,” COM (2018) 236 final (Apr. 26, 2018).
• French Government, Combating the Manipulation of Information  
• Libra White Paper  

 

Session 6: The Role of Education: Civics and Media Literacy

News Articles and Blogs 

• A Europe that Protects: Good Progress on Tackling Hybrid Threats, European Law Monitor, May 31, 2019.
• Brooke Donald, Stanford Researchers Find Students Have Trouble Judging the Credibility of Information Online, Stanford University, November 22, 2016.
• Yoni Appelbaum, “Americans Aren’t Practicing Democracy Anymore,” The Atlantic, October 2018.
• “Americans’ Civics Knowledge Increases but Still Has a Long Way to Go,” Annenberg Public Policy Center, September 12, 2019.

Scholarly Publications 

• Joelle Nagle, Twitter, Cyber-Violence, and the Need for a Critical Social Media Literacy in Teacher Education: A Review of the Literature, 76 Teaching and Teacher Education 86 (2018).  
• Suzanne E. Spaulding and Eric Goldstein, “Countering Adversary Threats to Democratic Institutions,” CSIS, Feb. 2018.
• Bobby Chesney and Danielle Citron, “Deep Fakes: A Looming Challenge for Privacy, Democracy, and National Security” 
• Jamie Fly, Laura Rosenberger, and David Salvo, “Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in Democracies,”  2018   
• Statement of Laura Rosenberger, “Foreign Influence Operations and their use of Social Media Platforms, ”
• Rachel Kleinfeld and David Solimini, “What Comes Next? Lessons for the Recovery of Liberal Democracy, ” October 2018

Legal Sources 

• United States, Executive Office of the President [Barack Obama]. Executive Order: Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities.  April 1, 2015.  
• United States, Executive Office of the President [Barack Obama]. Executive Order: Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.  Feb. 12, 2013.  
• United States, Executive Office of the President [Donald Trump]. Executive Order: Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure.  May 11, 2017.