Christopher Wolf

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Christopher Wolf (born Washington, DC 1954) is an American attorney known for his career in Internet and privacy law. He was one of the first lawyers to practice Internet law and Privacy law. He is a retired partner in the international law firm of Hogan Lovells US LLP. [1] He is the founding editor and lead author of the first Practising Law Institute (PLI) legal treatise on privacy and information security law. He is the founder and co-chair of a think tank devoted to emerging privacy issues, the Future of Privacy Forum. [2] He also has chaired an international consortium of non-governmental organizations fighting online hate speech, the International Network Against Cyber-hate (INACH). Wolf graduated from Bowdoin College in 1976, and magna cum laude Order of the Coif from Washington & Lee University School of Law in 1980. He clerked with the Hon. Aubrey E. Robinson Jr., United States District Court, District of Columbia, 1980–1982.

In 2013, Wolf co-authored (with Abraham Foxman) a book entitled Viral Hate: Containing its Spread on the Internet (Macmillan Palgrave), reflecting his longstanding and ongoing work monitoring and addressing online hate.

Wolf is known for his decades-long commitment through Board Service to various non-profits, focusing on social services, civil rights and the arts.

Interests

He is chairman emeritus of the International Network Against Cyber-Hate (INACH) and chaired the Anti-Defamation League's National Committee on the Internet. He serves on the national board of the Anti-Defamation League was regional chair of the Washington, DC ADL Board (1998–2002). He received the ADL Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.[ citation needed ] He is on the boards of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the DC History Center, the Capital Jewish Museum and Young Concert Artists. He was on the National Symphony Orchestra Board of Directors, and the Board of Directors of Food & Friends, where he was Board President (1996–1998). He also served on the boards of WETA, and the George Washington University Hospital. Wolf was the first president of Responsible Electronic Communication Alliance (RECA), an organization started to promote professional standards for online communication and marketing. Wolf became a member of the American Law Institute in 2012. He has been a member of the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC since 1997.

Related Research Articles

Hate speech is a term with varied meaning and has no single, consistent definition. It is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". The Encyclopedia of the American Constitution states that hate speech is "usually thought to include communications of animosity or disparagement of an individual or a group on account of a group characteristic such as race, color, national origin, sex, disability, religion, or sexual orientation". There is no single definition of what constitutes "hate" or "disparagement". Legal definitions of hate speech vary from country to country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Defamation</span> Any communication that can injure a third partys reputation

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hate group</span> Collective united by hatred against others

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abraham Foxman</span> Polish Jewish American lawyer, activist

Abraham Henry Foxman is an American lawyer and activist. He served as the national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) from 1987 to 2015, and is currently the League's national director emeritus. From 2016 to 2021 he served as vice chair of the board of trustees at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City in order to lead its efforts on antisemitism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Black (white supremacist)</span> American white supremacist and neo-Nazi

Stephen Donald Black is an American white supremacist. He is the founder and webmaster of the neo-Nazi, Holocaust denial, and homophobic website Stormfront. He was a Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan and a member of the American Nazi Party in the 1970s, though at the time he was a member it was known as the "National Socialist White Peoples' Party". He was convicted in 1981 of attempting an armed overthrow of the government in the island of Dominica in violation of the U.S. Neutrality Act.

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Michael Allen Geist is a Canadian academic, and the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He is the editor of four books on copyright law and privacy law, and he edits two newsletters on Canadian information technology and privacy law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet governance</span> System of laws, policies and practices

Internet governance consists of a system of laws, rules, policies and practices that dictate how its board members manage and oversee the affairs of any internet related-regulatory body. This article describes how the Internet was and is currently governed, some inherent controversies, and ongoing debates regarding how and why the Internet should or should not be governed in future.

An anonymous post, is an entry on a textboard, anonymous bulletin board system, or other discussion forums like Internet forum, without a screen name or more commonly by using a non-identifiable pseudonym. Some online forums such as Slashdot do not allow such posts, requiring users to be registered either under their real name or utilizing a pseudonym. Others like JuicyCampus, AutoAdmit, 2channel, and other Futaba-based imageboards thrive on anonymity. Users of 4chan, in particular, interact in an anonymous and ephemeral environment that facilitates rapid generation of new trends.

K. A. (Kim) Taipale is an American investor, legal scholar, and social theorist specializing in information, technology, and national security policy. He is a partner in Stilwell Holding, a private investment firm, and the former chairman of the executive committee of Kobra International Ltd. He is also the founder and executive director of the Stilwell Center for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Policy, a private, nonpartisan research organization, and a director of the Stilwell Charitable Fund. He was previously an investment banker at Lazard Freres & Co. and a lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell.

Internet safety, also known as online safety, cyber safety and electronic safety (e-safety), refers to the policies, practices and processes that reduce the harms to people that are enabled by the (mis)use of information technology.

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties.

Stormfront is a neo-Nazi Internet forum, and the Web's first major racial hate site. The site is focused on propagating white nationalism, Nazism, antisemitism and Islamophobia, as well as anti-feminism, homophobia, transphobia, Holocaust denial, and white supremacy.

Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass an individual, group, or organization. It may include false accusations, defamation, slander and libel. It may also include monitoring, identity theft, threats, vandalism, solicitation for sex, doxing, or blackmail. These unwanted behaviors are perpetrated online and cause intrusion into an individual's digital life as well as negatively impact a victim's mental and emotional well-being, as well as their sense of safety and security online.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Swire</span> American academic

Peter P. Swire is the J.Z. Liang Chair in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Swire is also Professor of Law and Ethics in the Scheller College of Business and has an appointment by courtesy with the School of Public Policy. He is an internationally recognized expert in privacy law. Swire is also a senior fellow at the Future of Privacy Forum and has served on the National Academies of Science and Engineering Forum on Cyber Resilience. During the Clinton administration, he became the first person to hold the position of Chief Counselor for Privacy in the Office of Management and Budget. In this role, he coordinated administration policy on privacy and data protection, including interfacing with privacy officials in foreign countries. He may be best known for shaping the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Privacy Rule while serving as the Chief Counselor for Privacy. In November 2012 he was named as co-chair of the Tracking Protection Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), to attempt to mediate a global Do Not Track standard. In August 2013, President Obama named Swire as one of five members of the Director of National Intelligence Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies.

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David R. Johnson is an American lawyer specializing in computer communications. He is a senior fellow at Center for Democracy and Technology, and a former chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danielle Citron</span> American law professor

Danielle Keats Citron is a Jefferson Scholars Foundation Schenck Distinguished Professor in Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, where she teaches information privacy, free expression, and civil rights law. Citron is the author of "The Fight for Privacy: Protecting Dignity, Identity, and Love in the Digital Age" and "Hate Crimes in Cyberspace" (2014). She also serves as the Vice President of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, an organization which provides assistance and legislative support to victims of online abuse. Prior to joining UVA Law, Citron was an Austin B. Fletcher Distinguished Professor of Law at Boston University Law School, and was also the Morton & Sophia Macht Professor of Law at the University of Maryland School of Law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Israeli Students Combating Antisemitism</span>

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References

  1. "Legal challenges come from all directions". Hoganlovells.com. Archived from the original on 16 May 2019. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
  2. "Future of Privacy Forum". Futureofprivacy.org. Retrieved 30 June 2018.