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Wednesday, September 30, 2020
9:00 AM U.S. Eastern Time

About the Event

For years the United States has been the champion of a borderless and largely unregulated Internet. China, by contrast, has promoted “Internet sovereignty,” which means governments should regulate Internet traffic much as they would physical traffic crossing their national borders.  Rebecca MacKinnon, an Internet policy expert and advocate for governing the Internet according to international human rights standards, says the U.S. government’s recent moves to ban two leading Chinese-owned apps, TikTok and We Chat, and purge Chinese companies like Huawei from American networks are simply another version of “Internet sovereignty,” and will do little to protect the human rights of Internet users in the United States or around the world.   

About the Speaker

Rebecca MacKinnon is founding director of (RDR), a research program at that sets global standards for corporate respect for freedom of expression and privacy online. The ranks the world’s most powerful internet, mobile, and telecommunications companies on relevant commitments and policies, based on international human rights standards.  A 2019-2020 and author of (2012), MacKinnon is co-founder of the citizen media network, serves on the Board of Directors of the and is a founding member of the. Previously, she was CNN’s Bureau Chief and correspondent in China and Japan between 1998-2004. She has taught at the University of Hong Kong and the University of Pennsylvania, and held fellowships at Harvard, Princeton, and the Open Society Foundations.