Jon Penney

Join us on February 23rd for a conversation with @penney.bsky.social around his new book Chilling Effects, exposing how emerging technologies are increasingly weaponized to threaten democracy.

ℹ️/🎟 www.uottawa.ca/research-inn...

Happening tomorrow! Join us online to hear from
@penney.bsky.social exploring key themes from his new book, ‘Chilling effects: repression, conformity and power in the digital age’. Tuesday 3 February, 12.00-13.00 GMT. Register here: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

Chilling Effects Amazon.com: Chilling Effects: 9781108725309: Penney, Jonathon W.: Books

Hot off the press - Jon Penney's @penney.bsky.social new book, CHILLING EFFECTS. As I wrote in my blurb: "This book is the definitive account of chilling effects – the most comprehensive and incisive analysis to date." amzn.to/3L3G2VC

Moving from secrecy to transparency in the offensive cyber capabilities sector: The case of dual-use technologies exports Transparency is central to the prevention of human rights abuses. Over the past few decades, a belief in transparency has permeated multiple industrie…

More transparency is a critical component that in theory should be relatively easy to implement. Along with @penney.bsky.social & Niamh Leonard, we argued that such transparency is critical to the system's functioning: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti....

The Science of Chilling Effects

How can we know if a law or policy has chilled people’s free expression? Can we use science to find out?

Excited to join @penney.bsky.social, author of a new book on Chilling Effects, & @katygb.bsky.social on Dec 10th to discuss the science of civil liberties

knightcolumbia.org/events/the-s...

The Science of Chilling Effects

Details and RSVP link for the social science and chilling effects webinar on Dec. 10, with @penney.bsky.social and @natematias.bsky.social: knightcolumbia.org/events/the-s...

Litigating Chilling Effects

Want to learn more about chilling effects and why they matter to the First Amendment? Join our webinar with litigators and experts on Monday, Nov. 17, including @carriedecell.bsky.social @evelyndouek.bsky.social @penney.bsky.social @stacylivingston.bsky.social:

knightcolumbia.org/events/litig...

What the Columbia Settlement Really Means

The Columbia settlement is an “astonishing transfer of autonomy and authority to . . . an administration whose disdain for the values of the academy is demonstrated anew every day.” New @knightcolumbia.org analysis of the Columbia settlement, just published. knightcolumbia.org/blog/what-th...

From concerns about social media addiction to urgent civil liberties issues, courts are asking scientists to be arbiters of alleged technology harms. How can scientists reliably inform courts and how can courts interpret our work?

New article with @penney.bsky.social
tsjournal.org/index.php/jo...

Really grateful to the Université de Montréal for organizing this roundtable on The Privacy Fallacy and to @penney.bsky.social @elanazeide.bsky.social @stzeitouni.bsky.social @cehaupt.bsky.social Nicolas Vermeys Pierre-Luc Deziel & Neil Richards for joining and sharing their fabulous interventions

Except this authoritarian regime is too stupid to do so, and in fact is adopting policies to do the opposite, and will accelerate those prices.

Their advantage is their ruthlessness, shamelessness, and wealth; their disadvantage is their stupidity.

Steve Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die

"the U.S. is sliding toward a more 21st-century model of autocracy: competitive authoritarianism"
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

"A failure to resist... could pave the way for authoritarian entrenchment"
www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

A classic authoritarian move is to go after judges. I honestly did not think we would see it in the US because the system is already so politicized and Trump has a 6-3 majority. But here we are.

YouTube video by Air Quotes Media Cybersecurity and Cyber Espionage with Ron Deibert | The Herle Burly

Check this interview out. @rondeibert.bsky.social and @citizenlab.ca at the Munk School are Canadian national treasures. youtu.be/x3z_R-oIRzg

Opinion: The TikTok ban is already dead in the water No matter what happens next, Donald Trump has already completely undermined the law’s efforts to protect national security from Chinese interference

President Trump delayed the U.S. #TikTok ban, but is his executive order legally sound? The Citizen Lab’s @penney.bsky.social writes for the @theglobeandmail.com, questioning whether the move addresses privacy issues or is purely about political power.
www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

it really is appropriate to view this as potentially the biggest privacy and cybersecurity scandal in American history

Others like @taylorowen.bsky.social, who I link therein, have written similarly about this new era. It requires a different approach to tech regulation but also democratic governance. The law that enacted the TikTok ban weaponizes rather than restrains this new tech/state power.

Opinion: The TikTok ban is already dead in the water No matter what happens next, Donald Trump has already completely undermined the law’s efforts to protect national security from Chinese interference

I wrote about the the TikTok ban in the @theglobeandmail.com. I argue the ban is dead for a few reasons, but mostly because its' design failed to account for the new era that Trump's admin represents: persistent weaponization of tech and state power: www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

Building Bridges for Science in Technology Litigation How can we bridge the knowledge gaps between empirical researchers, litigators, and regulators?

How can scientists provide courts with reliable evidence in tech litigation?

@mwoluchem.bsky.social interviewed researchers, civil society, & litigators CAT Lab convened to ask this question. Here's her report: A Collective Front Toward Platform Accountability

citizensandtech.org/2025/01/scie...

NGOs and individual experts, including Citizen Lab's @rondeibert.bsky.social, @noura.bsky.social, @penney.bsky.social, and Kate Robertson, urge Canada to reject the UN's draft Convention against Cybercrime in an open letter to @melaniejolycan.bsky.social, Hon Dominic LeBlanc & Hon Arif Virani.

That’s fantastic news, Simon! It’s a brilliant thesis. Congratulations!

Starter pack for faculty, adjuncts, staff, etc, at Osgoode Hall Law School:

go.bsky.app/P28f8BK

Great to see the mass exodus from X, Threads, and other platforms to #Bluesky. For those interested in privacy and tech law, highly recommend Dan’s starter pack! bsky.app/profile/dani...

Fully agree.

Couldn’t agree more. I mean, I’m reading @sarahjeong.bsky.social reporting from inside the National Assembly in Seoul. That’s what Twitter used to offer. bsky.app/profile/esqu...

that Korea does this, immediately, in the face of actual soldiers trying to impose martial law - when members of our own congress voted for a coup hours after the J6 mob stormed congress, and the coup instigator won the next election - is about as scathing an indictment of America as I’ve ever seen

I'm at the National Assembly building. The army is here. And I just saw two soldiers in fatigues getting pushed around by belligerent ajusshis. and they looked legit scared.