Social media initiative aims to aid user privacy
Obama unable to attend Harvard panel due to illness
Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society on Wednesday rolled out an initiative to develop new forms of social media that would give users more control over the sensitive data they post online.
The Applied Social Media Lab will work to develop a decentralized social networking protocol that will allow users to store their social data in databases that they control, rather than creating separate profiles for multiple commercial services like Facebook, X, or YouTube.
The lab’s efforts could make it easier for users to protect their privacy, or to move among different social networks without starting from scratch.
Harvard Business School hosted a panel to discuss the effort on Wednesday. It was set to feature former president Barack Obama, but an aide announced just prior to the event that Obama would be unable to attend because “he woke up with COVID-like symptoms this morning.”
“He’s very sorry to miss this because he is deeply committed to the work of the lab,” said Obama’s chief digital adviser Jason Goldman.
Other panelists included Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain, former head of Trust and Safety at Twitter Yoel Roth, former Obama administration consultant Tracy Chou, and Kasia Chmielinski, former member of the United States Digital Service in the Trump administration. About 200 people held a “diein” outside the Harvard Business School at the time of Obama’s scheduled appearance.
The protest targeted the Israeli government’s planned incursion into Gaza in the aftermath of an attack that killed over 1,200 Israelis. As helicopters whirred overhead, the protesters lay prone on the lawn as if dead, while holding signs accusing Israel of genocide and demanding an immediate ceasefire.