Rebecca MacKinnon is cofounder of Global Voices, a global citizen media network, and an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre,  where she teaches online journalism and conducts research on the Internet, China, and censorship. As an Open Society Fellow, MacKinnon is writing a book, tentatively titled "Internet Freedom and Control: Lessons from China for the World."

At the Open Society Institute, MacKinnon is leading discussions on how China is using a combination of carrots and sticks to shape debate and silence dissent on the Internet.

Fluent in Mandarin, she was previously CNN bureau chief in Beijing and in Tokyo. She is also a founding member of the Global Network Initiative, which advances freedom of expression and privacy in the Internet and telecoms sectors. 

In 2007 and 2008, she was public lead for Creative Commons Hong Kong. She has previously been a fellow at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where she focused on blogs and participatory online media in international news, and at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

She will be dividing her time between her home base in Hong Kong and the Open Society Institute offices in New York and London.

Read more about MacKinnon on her blog, RConversation.

Hong Kong; Washington, D.C.; London  |  Feb 2009 - Jan 2010