Rebecca MacKinnon
{{Short description|American activist and journalist}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2018}}
{{Moresources|date=April 2024}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Rebecca MacKinnon
| image = Rebecca MacKinnon 2021 (cropped).jpg
| caption = MacKinnon in 2021
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1969|9|16}}
| birth_place = Berkeley, California, U.S.
| other_names =
| education = Harvard University (BA)
| occupation = Journalist, author, researcher
| known_for =
| awards = Goldsmith Book Prize
}}
Rebecca MacKinnon (born September 16, 1969) is an American author, researcher, and Internet freedom advocate, and the co-founder of the citizen media network Global Voices. She is notable as a former CNN journalist who headed the CNN bureaus in Beijing and later in Tokyo. She is on the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists,{{cite web |url=http://cpj.org/2009/12/rebecca-mackinnon-ahmed-rashid-and-maria-teresa-ro.php |title=Rebecca MacKinnon, Ahmed Rashid, and María Teresa Ronderos join CPJ board |publisher=Committee to Protect Journalists |date= December 21, 2009|accessdate=July 17, 2010}} a founding board member of the Global Network Initiative{{cite web |url=http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/board/index.php |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100312133327/http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/board/index.php |url-status=dead |archive-date=March 12, 2010 |title=Board of Directors |publisher=Global Network Initiative |accessdate=July 17, 2010 }} the founding director of the Ranking Digital Rights project at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, and is the Vice President for Global Advocacy at the Wikimedia Foundation.
Early life and education
File:Rebecca MacKinnon (January 27 2005).jpg, Davos, Switzerland, 2005]]
File:Rebecca MacKinnon 20100508.jpg
MacKinnon was born in Berkeley, California. When she was three years old, MacKinnon's family moved to Tempe, Arizona, where her father, Stephen R. MacKinnon, had taken a job as Professor of Chinese History at Arizona State University. Her parents' academic research careers led her to pass most of her primary school years in Delhi, India, Hong Kong, and Beijing, China, before moving back to Arizona for middle and high school. She graduated from Tempe High in 1987.
She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1991 with a B.A. in Government. After graduating, she served as a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan, where she also worked as a Newsweek stringer.
Career
=CNN=
MacKinnon joined CNN in 1992 as Beijing Bureau Assistant and moved up to Producer/Correspondent by 1997 and Bureau Chief by 1998.{{cite web |url=http://www.timewarner.com/corp/newsroom/pr/0,20812,667269,00.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130105111216/http://www.timewarner.com/corp/newsroom/pr/0,20812,667269,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 5, 2013 |title=CNN Appoints Rebecca MacKinnon Beijing Bureau Chief |publisher=Time Warner |date=March 30, 1998 |accessdate=July 17, 2010 }} In 2001 she became Tokyo Bureau Chief. During her time with CNN, she interviewed notable leaders including Junichiro Koizumi, Dalai Lama, Pervez Musharraf, and Mohammad Khatami.
=Fellowships=
In the spring of 2004, MacKinnon was a fellow of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.{{cite web |url=http://www.hks.harvard.edu/presspol/fellowships/fellows_2004_spring.html |title=Spring 2004 Fellows – Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy |publisher=Hks.harvard.edu |date= |accessdate=July 17, 2010 |archive-date=July 7, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100707021949/http://www.hks.harvard.edu/presspol/fellowships/fellows_2004_spring.html |url-status=dead }} That summer, she joined Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society as a Research Fellow, where she remained until December 2006.{{cite web |url=http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/137 |title=Rebecca MacKinnon | Berkman Center |publisher=Cyber.law.harvard.edu |date= |accessdate=July 17, 2010}} Among her projects at the Berkman Center, MacKinnon founded Global Voices Online in collaboration with Ethan Zuckerman.{{cite web |author=Rebecca MacKinnon |url=http://globalvoices.org/2009/12/22/we-are-global-voices-five-years-on/ |title=Global Voices in English » We are Global Voices. Five years on |publisher=Globalvoices.org |date= December 22, 2009|accessdate=July 17, 2010}}
In January 2007 she joined the Journalism and Media Studies Center at the University of Hong Kong, where she remained until January 2009.{{cite web |url=http://jmsc.hku.hk/cms/component/option,com_magazine/func,show_article/id,21/Itemid,33/ |title=Journalism and Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong – Rebecca MacKinnon |publisher=Jmsc.hku.hk |date=April 27, 2009 |accessdate=July 17, 2010 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090921085642/http://jmsc.hku.hk/cms/component/option,com_magazine/func,show_article/id,21/Itemid,33/ |archivedate=September 21, 2009 }} From February 2009 to January 2010, she conducted research as an Open Society Fellow, funded by George Soros' Open Society Institute.{{cite web |url=http://www.soros.org/initiatives/fellowship/focus_areas/grantees/mackinnon_2009 |title=Rebecca MacKinnon | Open Society Fellowship | Open Society Institute |publisher=Soros.org |date= |accessdate=July 17, 2010 |archive-date=May 1, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100501092002/http://www.soros.org/initiatives/fellowship/focus_areas/grantees/mackinnon_2009 |url-status=dead }} Then in February 2010 she joined Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy where she was a visiting fellow, working on a book about the future of freedom in the Internet age.{{cite web |url=http://citp.princeton.edu/events/lunch/rebecca-mackinnon/ |title=Center for Information Technology Policy » Rebecca MacKinnon – Google, China, and Global Internet Freedom |publisher=Citp.princeton.edu |date=February 11, 2010 |accessdate=July 17, 2010 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://archive.today/20100308140747/https://citp.princeton.edu/events/lunch/rebecca-mackinnon/ |archivedate=March 8, 2010 }} Regarding the Middle East, MacKinnon wrote that "the Internet empowers people and helps to bring about the peaceful changes associated with the Arab Spring".{{Cite web |url=http://ala12.scheduler.ala.org/node/1399 |title=Opening General Session featuring Rebecca MacKinnon | 2012 ALA Annual Scheduler |access-date=September 15, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120715055251/http://ala12.scheduler.ala.org/node/1399 |archive-date=July 15, 2012 |url-status=dead }}
In September 2010, MacKinnon became a Bernard L. Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation.{{cite web |url=http://rconversation.blogs.com/about.html |title=From her own blog}} She is the Founding Director of the think tank's Ranking Digital Rights project which ranks the world's most powerful Internet, mobile, and telecommunications, companies on their respect for users' rights, with a focus on free expression and privacy.
= Wikimedia =
In January 2007, MacKinnon joined the inaugural Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board,January 29, 2007, Archive:Press releases/Advisory Board at foundation.wikimedia.org. where she remained until December 2012.July 18, 2011, Resolution:Advisory Board reappointments at foundation.wikimedia.org.
File:Rebecca MacKinnon at SXSW 2025 02.jpg
In September 2021, she joined the Foundation as its inaugural Vice President of Global Advocacy.{{Cite web|date=27 September 2021|title=Wikimedia Foundation Announces New Vice President for Global Advocacy Rebecca MacKinnon|url=https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2021/09/27/wikimedia-foundation-announces-new-vice-president-for-global-advocacy-rebecca-mackinnon/|access-date=28 September 2021|website=Wikimedia Foundation}}
= ''Consent of the Networked'' =
MacKinnon's first book, Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom, was published by Basic Books in January 2012 and won the Goldsmith Book Prize. In an interview, she said that she argues in the book (among other things) that:{{cite magazine |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/the-fight-for-a-fair-and-free-internet/253027/ |title=The Fight for a Fair and Free Internet |first=Rebecca J. |last=Rosen |date=February 14, 2012 |magazine=The Atlantic}}
:We cannot assume that the Internet will evolve automatically in a direction that is going to be compatible with democracy. It depends on how the technology is structured, governed, and used. Governments and corporations are working actively to shape the Internet to fit their own needs. The most insidious situations arise when both government and corporations combine their efforts to exercise power over the same people at the same time, in largely unconstrained and unaccountable ways. This is why I argue that if we the people do not wake up and fight for the protection of our own rights and interests on the Internet, we should not be surprised to wake up one day to find that they have been programmed, legislated, and sold away.
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Commons category}}
- [http://rconversation.blogs.com/ RConversation (Rebecca MacKinnon's blog)]
- [http://consentofthenetworked.com/ Consent of the Networked] (website for book)
{{Wikimedia Foundation}}
{{Wikipedia}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mackinnon, Rebecca}}
Category:American human rights activists
Category:American women human rights activists
Category:Harvard University alumni
Category:People from Tempe, Arizona
Category:Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board members