Juan Ortiz-Freuler
Research Scholar

Juan recently completed a PhD in Communication at USC Annenberg, where he researched digital infrastructure, platform governance, and media law and policy. Juan’s dissertation explored government strategies for digital strategic autonomy amid weaponized technological interdependence.

At the Center, his work focuses on the human rights implications of AI and datafication processes. He approaches these questions using empirical analysis and law and political economy frameworks.

Juan’s research has been published in the Temple Law Review, New Media & Society, Internet Policy Review, International Journal of Communication, Journal of CyberPolicy, and Global Media and China. He also is actively engaged in public debates. His work has appeared in Wired, The Washington Post, Tech Won’t Save Us, CNN, and Euractiv, among others.

Originally from Argentina, his research agenda emerges from sustained engagement with policymakers, tech managers, and human rights practitioners across the world. Juan has designed and managed the process that led to the Contract for the Web, a global initiative to protect digital rights launched by web inventor Tim Berners-Lee. He was also a Fellow (2017–2018) and Affiliate (2019–2024) at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center, coordinated research for UNESCO, and convened workshops where human rights activists and policymakers explored trends in digital rights and human rights in order to re-design their strategic approaches to urgent problems.

Juan has worked with civil society organizations across Latin America, developing digital tools to monitor judicial appointments in Buenos Aires, and exposing gaps in digital inclusion policies in Mexico, among many other projects. He understands the value of grounding his research in open and participatory practices that involve affected stakeholders and the public. I deploy these approaches as co-initiator of the Non-Aligned Tech Movement, a network where 130+ subscribed researchers and practitioners re-imagine tech futures.

He is trained in law (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella), policy (Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford), internet studies (Oxford Internet Institute), and communication (USC Annenberg). He brings this interdisciplinary background to the classroom, which he combines with his broad professional experience to develop scenarios for active-learning. He strives to prepare students for decision-making positions at the intersections of technology, law, and policy.