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Grassroots Lobbying and Big Tech
April 28, 2022 at 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm EDT
FreeAbout the Program
The use of ads microtargeting, which is dependent on the collection and analysis of information about users, raises concerns from privacy advocates. With the Cambridge-Analytica scandal exposing the risks associated with microtargeting in political contexts, these concerns have been heightened. The debate around microtargeting has recently further intensified, with the understanding that big technology companies leverage microtargeting to mobilize their users to take tech-friendly political action.
We will be joined by Professor Abbey Stemler and Professor Ira Rubinstein, who will discuss the challenges presented by this relatively new form of political power and its effects on individual autonomy and deliberative democracy.
Speakers:
Moderated by Yafit Lev-Aretz, Assistant Professor of Law at Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College
Panelists
Abbey Stemler is an associate professor of business law and ethics at Indiana University. She is a leading scholar on the regulation of the sharing economy and platform-based businesses. Her research aims to expose the evolving realities of Internet-based innovations and find ways to effectively regulate them without hindering their beneficial uses. As she sees it, many modern firms inhabit a world that operates under alien physics—where free is often costly and “smart” is not always wise. She therefore employs tools and insights from economics, behavioral science, regulatory theory, and rhetoric to understand how we, as a society, can better protect consumers, privacy, and democracy.
Professor Stemler is also a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center or Internet & Society at Harvard University, practicing attorney, entrepreneur, and consultant for governments and multinational organizations such as the World Bank Group. She is nationally recognized for her research, teaching, and service and is the recipient of multiple awards including the Academy of Legal Studies in Business’s Outstanding Early Career Achievement Award, Indiana University’s Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, and the Jerry S. Cohen Award for Antitrust Scholarship.
Professor Stemler’s research has been covered by an array of outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and San Francisco Chronicle.
Ira Rubinstein is a Senior Fellow at the Information Law Institute. His research interests include Internet privacy, electronic surveillance law, big data, voters’ privacy, EU data protection law, and privacy engineering. Rubinstein lectures and publishes widely on issues of privacy and security and has testified before Congress on these topics on several occasions. Recent papers include “The Future of Self-Regulation is Co-Regulation,” “Anonymization and Risk,” and “Voter Privacy in the Age of Big Data.” Rubinstein has also completed a work in progress entitled “Privacy Localism.”Tech Ethics at the Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity:
Professor Yafit Lev-Aretz is the Director of the Robert Zicklin Center’s Program on Tech Ethics. Tech Ethics examines the ethical dilemmas associated with the various technology applications, including in the context of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data. The tech ethics program is designed to increase awareness of such ethical dilemmas and foster a conversation on the positive and negative impacts of technology. The program also aims to equip future leaders with the insights and perspectives needed to make complex decisions about the use of technology in business and society.
Professor Lev-Aretz is a tech policy expert, researching the fascinating relationship between the law, technology, and society. She has written about information privacy, the growing use of algorithmic decision-making, intrusive means of news dissemination, choice architecture in the age of big data, and the ethical challenges posed by machine learning and artificially intelligent systems. Additionally, her research highlights the legal treatment of beneficial uses of data, such as data philanthropy and the data for good movement, striving to strike a delicate balance between solid privacy protections and competing values.
[br[Schedule:
12:30 pm – Program begins
2:00 pm – Program concludes
Registration:
Complimentary pre-registration is required to attend this program. Please register online via Zoom.