Jonathan Zittrain
Faculty Director, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society
Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources
Professor of Computer Science, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Professor, Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government
Director of the Harvard Law School Library
George Bemis Professor of Law
Department: School of Law
Colleges / Universities: Harvard University
Contact
1525 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
Email: zittrain@law.harvard.edu
Website: Harvard Law School faculty profile
Jonathan Zittrain is the George Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Director of the Harvard Law School Library, and Faculty Director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.
His research interests include battles for control of digital property and content, cryptography, electronic privacy, the roles of intermediaries within Internet architecture, and the useful and unobtrusive deployment of technology in education.
He performed the first large-scale tests of Internet filtering in China and Saudi Arabia, and as part of the OpenNet Initiative co-edited a study of Internet filtering by national governments: Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering; Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace; and Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace.
He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Board of Advisors for Scientific American. He has served as a Trustee of the Internet Society and as a Forum Fellow of the World Economic Forum, which named him a Young Global Leader. He was a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Federal Communications Commission, and previously chaired the FCC’s Open Internet Advisory Committee. His book The Future of the Internet -- And How to Stop It (Yale University Press, 2008) predicted the end of general purpose client computing and the corresponding rise of new gatekeepers. That and other works may be found at www.jz.org.
Degrees
M.P.A Harvard University, 1995
J.D. Harvard Law School, 1995
B.S. Yale University, 1991
Recent Academic Article Summaries
Interventions Over Predictions: Reframing the Ethical Debate for Actuarial Risk Assessment
Machine learning is now being used in the criminal justice system. Because these systems focus on accuracy of prediction and ignore factors that drive crime, they can exacerbate problems of mass incarceration and inequality.
Data-driven models should be used to compare effective and ineffective interventions. Such models could reduce crime and increase fairness.
"Netwar": The Unwelcome Militarization of the Internet has Arrived
Once, fear of "cyberwar" was exaggerated. Today, governments and the military control networks for surveillance and use platforms like Facebook and Twitter for propaganda campaigns. These campaigns challenge the firms whose networks are targeted.
Governments should prepare to defend platforms manipulated by foreign states.
A Grand Bargain to Make Tech Companies Trustworthy?
Doctors and lawyers are barred from using client information for their own interests. This article asks if similar rules should apply to firms like Google and Facebook. Lawmakers could give such firms a safe harbor from regulation if they agree to safeguard consumers.
Google and Facebook could agree to become “information fiduciaries” in exchange for immunity from state privacy law.
Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace
This book compiles a series of articles analyzing cyberspace as a place where countries and citizens compete.
As use of the Internet continues to spread and mature, so must the regulation that governs basic functions such as access and control. As authoritarian governments act to restrict the social power of cyberspace, democratic states should counter these tendencies by enacting regulation designed to protect basic cyber-rights.
The Next Digital Decade
This book looks at the future of the Internet, asking how Internet economics and regulation are likely to change.
Experts agree that the Internet is important, but disagree about the best legal and policy approaches to issues like privacy, free speech, and Internet governance.
Blog Posts
Quotes in the News
Zittrain, J. (2021, June 30). The Atlantic.“It’s long overdue to affirm and enact the policies and technologies that will let us see where we’ve been, including and especially where we’ve erred, so we might have a coherent sense of where we are and where we want to go.”
Jonathan Zittrain
Faculty Director, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society
Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources
Professor of Computer Science, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Professor, Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government
Director of the Harvard Law School Library
George Bemis Professor of Law
School of Law
Harvard University
Zittrain, J. (2020, June 4). Columbia Journalism Review’s: The Media Today.“It’s strange that people like Mark (Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook) and Jack (Dorsey, chief executive of Twitter) have as much power as they do—whether to promote or squelch speech across billions of posts and users per day, including the power to do nothing.”
Jonathan Zittrain
Faculty Director, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society
Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources
Professor of Computer Science, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Professor, Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government
Director of the Harvard Law School Library
George Bemis Professor of Law
School of Law
Harvard University
Zittrain, J. (2020, February 8). The New York Times.“It’s important for social media sites that have massive reach to make and enforce policies concerning manipulated content, rather than abdicating all responsibility.”
Jonathan Zittrain
Faculty Director, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society
Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources
Professor of Computer Science, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Professor, Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government
Director of the Harvard Law School Library
George Bemis Professor of Law
School of Law
Harvard University
Zittrain, J. (2018, August 6). The Washington Post.“While private platforms aren’t bound by the restrictions of the First Amendment — generally only the government is — there’s a question about how much discretion they should choose to exercise over what speech they allow to flow through them.”
Jonathan Zittrain
Faculty Director, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society
Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources
Professor of Computer Science, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Professor, Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government
Director of the Harvard Law School Library
George Bemis Professor of Law
School of Law
Harvard University
Zittrain, J. (2018, June 3). The New York Times.“Companies making a critical mass of internet-enabled products should be required to post a “networked safety bond” to be cashed in if they abandon maintenance for a product, or fold entirely. Insurers can price bonds according to companies’ security practices.”
Jonathan Zittrain
Faculty Director, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society
Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources
Professor of Computer Science, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Professor, Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government
Director of the Harvard Law School Library
George Bemis Professor of Law
School of Law
Harvard University
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