Shows
Ctrl-Alt-SpeechSpotlight: Five Years of the Oversight Board, from Experiment to Essential InstitutionIn this sponsored Spotlight episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, host Ben Whitelaw talks to Oversight Board co-chair Paolo Carozza (Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana) and Board member Julie Owono (Executive Director of Internet Without Borders and research affiliate at Berkman Klein Centre) about the Board’s five-year journey and its plans for the future.Together, Ben, Paolo and Julie discuss the Board’s recently published report, From Bold Experiment to Essential Institution, and what it means to call Board “essential” in today’s ever-evolving internet landscape. They also talk about how the Board...
2026-01-0935 min
Just Security: Out LoudEarly Edition December 1st, 2025Your curated weekday guide to the biggest national security and foreign policy developments over the past 24 hours. Compiled by the Just Security team and read by an automated voice, The Early Edition is an essential resource for anyone shaping a just and secure world.Published December 1st, 2025, on Just Security. ICYMI: yesterday on Just SecurityThe Global Retreat from Content Moderation Is Endangering Free Expression: Kenya Shows Why By Julie OwonoCould “A House of Dynamite” Spark a Public Rethink of Nuclear Risk? By Blake NarendraPersecuting the Prosecutors: Israel’s Military Lawyers...
2025-12-0116 min
Silicon ZombiesSZ 139: AI in the EU Ft. Yaad, Gerard, Florence, Julie, & LutzZombies goes on a European Vacation! (in SF) 🏝️
In partnership with GABA, SAP, and the American European Chambers of Commerce and EuroCham, we held a panel discussion on the European Union AI Act: a pioneering regulatory framework that is shaping the future of artificial intelligence across Europe and influencing regulatory conversations globally.
This landmark legislation introduces key provisions with wide-reaching implications for AI governance, ethics, and innovation, offering a model that has sparked debate in the United States and beyond. We covered ethical considerations, the impact on competitiveness, and the legislative challenges, providing attendees with a comprehensive understanding of how t...
2024-12-091h 25
Silicon Carne, un peu de picante dans un monde de Tech !💣 Désinformation et Liberté d'Expression ! SPECIAL GUEST : Julie OwonoEn quelques semaines à peine, on a eu droit à un vrai festival : Pavel Durov, le fondateur de Telegram, en garde à vue en France, X banni au Brésil, et TikTok accusé aux États-Unis de propager des vidéos incitant au suicide. Alors, oui, si on en croit certains rapports, notre monde serait “plus sûr” et la sécurité en ligne se serait améliorée ces cinq dernières années. Mais à quel prix ? Est-ce que ce mouvement sécuritaire ne se fait pas aux dépends de nos libertés individuelles ? On marche sur un fil entre désin...
2024-09-161h 00
Cold CallHow Should Meta Be Governed for the Good of Society?Julie Owono is executive director of Internet Sans Frontières and a member of the Oversight Board, an outside entity with the authority to make binding decisions on tricky moderation questions for Meta’s companies, including Facebook and Instagram.
Harvard Business School visiting professor Jesse Shapiro and Owono break down how the Board governs Meta’s social and political power to ensure that it’s used responsibly, and discuss the Board’s impact, as an alternative to government regulation, in the case, “Independent Governance of Meta’s Social Spaces: The Oversight Board.”
2023-11-0724 min
Wonks and War RoomsSeason 5 Wrap UpIn this final episode, our host Elizabeth reflects on the six episodes of Season 5, which dug into tech, politics, and policy with guests from the Berkman Klein Centre at Harvard and Center for Information Technology and Public Life (CITAP) at UNC-Chapel Hill. She recaps highlights of each episode, looks at what they had in common, and where we need to dig a little deeper.Additional resources:Here are direct links to this season’s episodes, including show notes and annotated transcripts:Episode 1: Knowledge Mobilization for Policy Impact with Petra MolnarEpisode 2: Image Manipulation wi...
2023-05-2410 min
The Executive Appeal with Alex D. TrembleEp 93: How the internet and ChatGPT will cause the rise or fall of our society with Julie OwonoIt's no surprise that ChatGTP is trending, but will it and the internet cause the rise or fall of society? Guest Julie Owono shares her insight on this valuable topic. Julie Owono is the Executive Director of Internet Sans Frontières (Internet Without Borders), an inaugural member of the Facebook Oversight Board, and the Executive Director of the Content Policy & Society Lab, a project of the Progam on Democracy and the Internet at Stanford University. At the intersection of Business and Human Rights, her work focuses on creating channels of collaboration between different set of actors of th...
2023-04-1935 minWonks and War RoomsBig Tech and Political Campaigns with Becca RinkevichBecca Rinkevic is the Director of the Institute for Rebooting Social Media and formerly the Deputy Director of Digital Strategy at the White House under President Joe Biden. This week she and Elizabeth are tackling the role of big tech in election campaigns and political advertising. They talk about the involvement of representatives from social media companies in election advertising campaigns, the changes in these relationships before after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and what these relationships might look like in the future. They also talk about ways to report disinformation and harassment, guidelines around political advertising on social...
2023-03-2237 minWonks and War RoomsMeta Oversight Board with Julie OwonoJulie Owono is the executive director of Internet Sans Frontières (Internet Without Borders) and a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University. She is also an inaugural member of the Meta Oversight Board, an independent group of experts who review appeals of content moderation decisions on Facebook and Instagram, which is the topic of today’s episode. Elizabeth and Julie talk about the background of the board and the appeals process, how cases are chosen, the possibilities and limits of what can be accomplished with content moderation, and the lesson Julie has learned in her...
2023-03-0840 min
Two Think MinimumJulie Owono on the Importance of Establishing a Democratic Agenda for Content GovernanceJulie Owono is the Executive Director of Internet Sans Frontières (Internet Without Borders), an inaugural member of the Facebook Oversight Board, and the Executive Director of the Content Policy & Society Lab, a project of the Progam on Democracy and the Internet at Stanford University. At the intersection of Business and Human Rights, her work focuses on creating channels of collaboration between different set of actors of the Internet. She is particularly interested in finding policy and technical solutions to foster collaborations for a better content moderation on online platforms. Julie is an Affiliate of the Berkman Kleine Center on I...
2022-08-0238 min
Silicon Carne, un peu de picante dans un monde de Tech !Internet & LibertésNous avons tous en tête le célèbre *Minority Report* de Steven Spielberg. L’histoire se passe en 2054, un service de police spécialisé, appréhende des criminels avant que ceux-ci ne commettent leur crime, sur la base de prédictions fournies par trois humains mutants capable de vision, les “précogs”. Ce classique de la science fiction pose la question de la pre-détermination de notre avenir mais il pose également une autre question, plus discrète, celle du poids des algorithmes, et de la modération de leur contenu. Liberté de pensée, liberté d'expression en 2021 : qui pense...
2022-02-101h 10
Explain to ShaneUnpacking the complexities of online content moderation (with Julie Owono)The debate around online content moderation is not slowing down. People remain bitterly divided over whether social media platforms should take down more content, or not moderate at all. But this issue is not limited to the US: Across the world, authoritarian regimes are using online censorship to silence dissenters, and are retaliating against citizens who share certain content online. How are content moderation experts working to solve these ever-complex issues? On this episode, Shane is joined by Julie Owono to discuss why we need clear principles around online speech — centered on free expression — and how these prin...
2021-12-2136 min
Priv8 PodcastDigital Rights and Facebook's Supreme Court with Julie OwonoHost Derek E. Silva joins Julie Owono, Executive Director for Internet Without Borders, and an inaugural member of the Facebook Oversight Board. A great conversation on how we can work together to protect digital rights, the true power of social media restrictions, and why Facebook created its own Supreme Court.
2021-09-0148 min
Priv8 PodcastDigital Rights and Facebook's Supreme Court with Julie OwonoHost Derek E. Silva joins Julie Owono, Executive Director for Internet Without Borders, and an inaugural member of the Facebook Oversight Board. A great conversation on how we can work together to protect digital rights, the true power of social media restrictions, and why Facebook created its own Supreme Court.
2021-09-0148 min
TechdirtThe Facebook Oversight Board's Trump DecisionLast week, the Oversight Board made its highest-profile decision yet: upholding Facebook's suspension of Donald Trump, though with the caveat that it needs clearer policy reasons to make the suspension indefinite. Unsurprisingly, a whole lot of people have a whole lot of opinions on this, and we wanted to learn more about the decision from the source. Julie Owono is an Oversight Board member and the Executive Director of Internet Sans Frontières, and she joins us on this week's episode to discuss how this decision was reached and what it means for Facebook.
2021-05-1150 min
Big Technology PodcastFacebook Oversight Board Member Julie Owono Takes Us Inside The Trump DecisionJulie Owono is a member of the Facebook Oversight Board, which today announced it's leaving Donald Trump's indefinite suspension in place. Owono joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the decision, the board's deliberations, and what comes next for Facebook and Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2021-05-0541 min
The ThinkND PodcastMisinformation and Disinformation, Part 6: What Can Smaller Platforms Learn from Ethical Challenges at Scale?Episode Topic: What Can Smaller Platforms Learn from Ethical Challenges at Scale?The session "Learning from Our Mistakes: What can smaller platforms learn from ethical challenges at scale?" features Julie Owono, founder of Internet Sans Frontières and a member of the Facebook Oversight Board, and Clint Smith, Chief Legal Officer at Discord. As debates around the responsibilities — and failings — of large social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter play out on a global scale, smaller platforms have an opportunity to learn from their pitfalls. Join us as our guests discuss the ethical challenges of scaling, lesson...
2021-04-2156 min
The Future of EverythingJulie Owono: How local voices will shape the global internetJulie Owono is a lawyer, executive director of Internet Sans Frontières and a fellow at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. She wants the world to know that the internet is the not the same for every person, everywhere. Born in Cameroon, and having grown up in Russia, she understands firsthand that every nation sets and maintains its own content standards.Owono has dedicated her career to establishing and securing basic digital rights, but also to developing standards by which social media giants—like Facebook, Google and Twitter—can distinguish hate speech from free speec...
2021-03-0927 min
Your Undivided AttentionFacebook Goes '2Africa' — with Julie OwonoThis summer, Facebook unveiled “2Africa,” a subsea cable project that will encircle nearly the entire continent of Africa — much to the surprise of Julie Owono. As Executive Director of Internet Without Borders, she’s seen how quickly projects like this can become enmeshed in local politics, as private companies dig through territorial waters, negotiate with local officials and gradually assume responsibility over vital pieces of national infrastructure. “It’s critical, now, that communities have a seat at the table,” Julie says. We ask her about the risks of tech companies leading us into an age of “digital colonialism,” and what she hopes to...
2020-09-0235 min
Chudi's podcastLesotho records first coronavirus caseLesotho today became the last country on the African continent to record a coronavirus case. Cameroon's Julie Owono talks about her appointment to the board overseeing Facebook content. Malawian artist Hazel Mak on her new ‘Unorthodox’ album.
2020-05-1325 min
Focus on AfricaLesotho records first coronavirus caseLesotho today became the last country on the African continent to record a coronavirus case.
Cameroon's Julie Owono talks about her appointment to the board overseeing Facebook content.
Malawian artist Hazel Mak on her new ‘Unorthodox’ album.
2020-05-1325 min
In betaEPISODE 4: Are we missing the bigger picture behind network disruptions? (S1)GPD's Executive Director talks to Deji Olukotun from Access Now, Julie Owono from Internet San Frontiers and Arthur Gwagwa from Strathmore University and the Open Technology Fund, about the bigger picture behind the growing trend of network disruptions.
This episode was recorded on the margins of the 2017 Internet Freedom Forum in Lagos, Nigeria.
2017-05-0800 min