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Speaker
Julie E. Cohen
Thu, 04/17/2025 - 16:30
Gates G01
Host
Cornell Bowers CIS Distinguished Speaker Series
Categories
Julie E. Cohen
Georgetown University Law Center
4/17/2025
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Location: Gates G01
Click here to attend via Zoom Passcode: 454952
Bio: Julie E. Cohen is the Mark Claster Mamolen Professor of Law and Technology and a faculty co-director of the Institute for Technology Law and Policy at the Georgetown University Law Center. She teaches and writes about surveillance, privacy and data protection, intellectual property, information platforms, and the ways that networked information and communication technologies are reshaping legal institutions.
Title: Oligarchy, State, and Cryptopia
Abstract: Theoretical accounts of power in networked digital environments typically do not give systematic attention to the phenomenon of oligarchy—to extreme concentrations of material wealth deployed to obtain and protect durable personal advantage. The biggest technology platform companies are dominated to a singular extent by a small group of very powerful and extremely wealthy men who have played uniquely influential roles in structuring technological development in particular ways that align with their personal beliefs and who now wield unprecedented informational, sociotechnical, and political power. Developing an account of oligarchy and, more specifically, of tech oligarchy within contemporary political economy therefore has become a project of considerable urgency.