Danielle K. Citron

· Jefferson Scholars Foundation Schenck Distinguished Professor of Law and Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law

University of Virginia · Law

Active 2005–2026

h-index24

Citations3.9k

Papers18130 last 5y

Funding—

Academic metrics are sourced from OpenAlex and public funding records; values may differ from Google Scholar.

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About

Danielle K. Citron is the Jefferson Scholars Foundation Schenck Distinguished Professor of Law and Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. She writes and teaches about privacy, free expression, and civil rights. She is the inaugural director of the Law School’s LawTech Center. In 2019, she was named a MacArthur Fellow for her work on cyberstalking and intimate privacy. Citron has been recognized as the No. 1 legal scholar among the Top 100 Law Scholars of 2024 and 2025, based on citation impact and scholarly influence, making her the first woman to receive this distinction. She has collaborated with lawmakers, law enforcement, and tech companies to combat online abuse and protect intimate privacy, and served as an adviser to the White House Gender Policy Council during the Biden administration. She has testified before Congress on issues related to deepfakes and privacy risks, and has advised major social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Twitch, as well as Spotify. Her publications include books, law review articles, and opinion pieces in major media outlets, focusing on privacy, free expression, and civil rights in the digital age. Citron is also the vice president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting for civil rights and liberties online, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has served as an adviser to the American Law…

Research topics

Computer Science
Political Science
Sociology
Public relations
Law and economics
Business
Law
Internet privacy
Public administration
Engineering

Selected publications

The Automated Administrative State: A Crisis of Legitimacy
SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020 · 92 citations
Senior authorCorresponding
The legitimacy of the administrative state is premised on our faith in agency expertise. Despite their extra-constitutional structure, administrative agencies have been on firm footing for a long time in reverence to their critical role in governing a complex, evolving society. They are delegated enormous power because they respond expertly and nimbly to evolving conditions. In recent decades, state and federal agencies have embraced a novel mode of operation: automation. Agencies rely more and…
Publisher OA PDF
Privacy Harms
SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021 · 26 citations
1st authorCorresponding
Publisher DOI
The Internet as a Speech Machine and Other Myths Confounding Section 230 Reform
2020 · 15 citations
1st authorCorresponding
A robust public debate is currently underway about the responsibility of online platforms. We have long called for this discussion, but only recently has it been seriously taken up by legislators and the public. The debate begins with a basic question: should platforms should be responsible for user-generated content? If so, under what circumstances? What exactly would such responsibility look like? Under consideration is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—a provision originally desig…
The Automated Administrative State: A Crisis of Legitimacy
eYLS (Yale Law School) · 2021-01-01 · 8 citations
articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
The legitimacy of the administrative state is premised on our faith in agency expertise. Despite their extra-constitutional structure, administrative agencies have been on firm footing for a long time in reverence to their critical role in governing a complex, evolving society. They are delegated enormous power because they respond expertly and nimbly to evolving conditions.In recent decades, state and federal agencies have embraced a novel mode of operation: automation. Agencies rely more and m…
Publisher OA PDF
Empowering Speech by Moderating It
Daedalus · 2024-01-01 · 4 citations
articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
Abstract Content moderation is typically viewed as an affront to free expression. When companies remove online abuse, they face accusations of censorship. Lost in the discussion is the fact that victims of intimate privacy violations and cyberstalking typically-and regrettably-withdraw from on- and offline activities. Online assaults chase targeted individuals offline; they silence victims. Content moderation can secure opportunities for people to speak. Legal and corporate prohibitions against…
Publisher DOI

Frequent coauthors

David Gray
Virginia Tech
16 shared
Frank Pasquale
University of Twente
9 shared
Mary Anne Franks
8 shared
Jonathon W. Penney
7 shared
Helen Norton
7 shared
Tracey Maclin
University of Florida
6 shared
Robert Chesney
6 shared
Benjamin Wittes
6 shared

Education

J.D.
Fordham University School of Law
1994
A.B.
Duke University
1990

Awards & honors

2019 MacArthur Fellow

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