Global Freedom of Expression

Rebecca MacKinnon

Rebecca MacKinnon directs the Ranking Digital Rights project at New America, evaluating tech companies on their respect for users’ free expression and privacy. MacKinnon is co-founder of the citizen media network Global Voices and author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom. She was a founding Board member of the Global Network Initiative and is currently on the Board of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, MacKinnon was CNN’s Bureau Chief and correspondent in China and Japan between 1998-2004.  More recently, she has taught at the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and is a visiting affiliate at the Annenberg School for Communication’s Center for Global Communication Studies. She has held fellowships at Harvard’s Shorenstein and Berkman Centers, the Open Society Foundations, Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy, and the New America Foundation. MacKinnon received her AB magna cum laude from Harvard University and was a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan. She lives in Washington DC.