In connection with our symposium, “The Forever War and The First Amendment,” the Knight Institute and Harper’s Magazine co-commissioned this essay by the writer Hari Kunzru about art created in the quarter century since 9/11. It appears in the October 2026 issue.
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After a decade or so of the general sentiment being in favor of the internet and social media as a way to enable more speech and improve the marketplace of ideas, in the last few years the view has shifted dramatically—now it seems that almost no one is happy. Some feel that these platforms have become cesspools of…
WASHINGTON – Twitter, Reddit, and Internet Association filed an amicus brief late yesterday in support of a lawsuit filed last year by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the Brennan Center for Justice, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP on behalf of plaintiffs Doc Society and International…
We articulate a vision of artificial intelligence (AI) as normal technology . To view AI as normal is not to understate its impact—even transformative, general-purpose technologies such as electricity and the internet are “normal” in our conception. But it is in contrast to both utopian and dystopian visions of the…
On March 31, Twitter open-sourced its recommendation algorithm. It turns out to be a standard engagement prediction algorithm of the kind most major platforms use; I explained how these algorithms work in a recent essay . The source code release makes for an interesting case study of social media transparency. Let’s…
Some of the most courageous journalists in the world write for El Faro, a Salvadoran news organization whose fearless, independent reporting about corruption, violence, and human rights abuses in Central America has earned it the gratitude of readers all over the world—and the enmity of criminal gangs and…
NEW YORK—The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit today held that border agents may search travelers’ electronic devices without suspicion. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) submitted an amicus brief in the case, arguing that…
What made TikTok such a success? A commonly given reason is that the app’s advanced AI is really good at figuring out what you want to watch. Many people say TikTok knows them better than they know themselves. Some users think of the algorithm as a divine force that guides them.