Special Topics in Social Science and Policy

This course explores current debates about government regulation of online businesses. We start by examining the unintended consequences of digital advertising models that support many large online companies. We then review debates over antitrust, mis- and disinformation, privacy, content controls (e.g., pornography), and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The primary focus of the class is on US policy, but we will examine the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the most significant data protection legislation to date. We also look briefly at the way that these issues are being addressed elsewhere in the world and discuss the challenge of national regulation of global businesses.

This seminar is designed to allow students to explore the politics of information in greater depth than is possible in an introductory survey course. Each week, we will read and discuss a carefully selected, recent book on an issue in the field. Books offer greater analytical depth and complexity of insight into the issues. The topics include the origins of the internet, Section 230, social media and political polarization, the rise of surveillance advertising, what is privacy, privacy in practice, privacy by design, internet security, digital monopolies, and state control of information. A final week asks if/how society can rise to the challenges.

This class is open to master’s and Ph.D. students. Students will be exposed to classic issues and current frontiers in the study of how information should be valued, when people acquire information, and how they process such information. We will begin with a unit covering a theoretical framework for how information should affect beliefs and actions. Then we will cover a unit exploring the psychological principles that promote or dissuade people from optimal responses to information. Then we will close with a unit surveying field evidence on how these principles affect decision-makers in markets and ways to reduce the problems therein.