Chilling Effects
Repression, Conformity, and Power in the Digital Age
Feb 23, 2026 — 11:30 a.m. to 12:50 p.m.
Join us for a conversation with Jon Penney around his new book Chilling Effects exposing how emerging technologies are increasingly weaponized to threaten democracy.
The University of Ottawa Centre for Law, Technology and Society presents:
Chilling Effects: Repression, Conformity, and Power in the Digital Age
Chilling Effects: Repression, Conformity, and Power in the Digital Age (Cambridge University Press, 2025) examines the increasing weaponization of surveillance, censorship, and new technology to repress and control us. With corporations, governments, and extremists employing big data, artificial intelligence, FRT, cyber-mobs, and other technological threats to limit our rights and freedoms, concerns about chilling effects—or how these activities deter us from exercising our rights—have become urgent.
Drawing on law, privacy theory, and social science, Jon Penney presents a new conformity theory that highlights the dangers of chilling effects and their potential to erode democracy and enable a more illiberal future.
Following the book’s urgent and timely message, he sheds light on the repressive and conforming effects of technology, state, and corporate power and offers a roadmap of how to respond to their weaponization today and tomorrow.
About the speakers
Dr. Jonathan (Jon) W. Penney is a legal scholar and social scientist at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, where he is an Associate Professor and holds the York Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence, Data Governance, and the Law. He is also a Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. His award-winning research on privacy, technology, and human rights has received national and international attention, including coverage in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Reuters International, The Guardian, and Le Monde, among others, and has been profiled in WIRED and Harvard Magazine.
In conversation with:
Dr. Elizabeth Dubois is the University Research Chair in Politics, Communication and Technology, a Faculty member at the Centre for Law, Technology and Society and an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ottawa. Her work examines political uses of digital media, including media manipulation, citizen engagement, and artificial intelligence.
Dr. Marcelo Thompson is a Faculty member at the Centre for Law, Technology and Society, and an Assistant Professor within the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section at the University of Ottawa. His research focuses on the intersection between technology law and politics. Unifying his work is a concern with the meaning and institutional conditions for the promotion of justice in the information age. Specific themes he focuses on include the regulation of technological platforms, privacy, data governance, and artificial intelligence.
Lunch provided.
This is a free event, but registration is required.
This event will be in English only.
The event may be recorded, and photos may be taken.