The UK government has now released its awaited Online Harms White Paper., detailing some potential changes to the law regulating intermediaries to try to curb damaging material found on the Internet. To say that the white paper has been controversial would be an understatement. While there are specific problems with Read more…
It would be fair to say that the Christchurch terrorist attack has been one of the most shocking events in recent history, not only because of the heinous act itself, but because the perpetrator live-streamed the attack on Facebook, and the video has then been shared countless times online. After Read more…
It’s a dance as old as (digital) time. When faced with a challenge, politicians will look for a scapegoat in which to assign the blame of a complex issue, and propose allegedly easy solutions to fix impossible problems. Terrorist attack? End encryption. Rise in populism? End fake news. Violent crime Read more…
We have access to more information than ever, yet disinformation is more widely available than ever before and we seem to be regressing . How is this possible? Can the Internet really be making us stupid?
The Internet was built on a series of relatively simple ideas. Decentralisation, resilience, content and transport neutrality. But from the start, one of the most important elements was that all content would be similarly available everywhere, because there would be no way to stop it. An open and free internet Read more…
This is the text for my presentation at re:publica 18. The slides can be found here. I have presented at re:publica for the last couple of years, and usually I try to do so with a work in progress paper at the early stages of research, and this is no Read more…
Digital colonialism describes the domination of Western companies in the provision of digital services in developing countries. These tend to be overwhelmingly US-based, and can be found in messaging, social media, search, music, storage, hosting, and domain names. While other names have been used to describe the phenomenon, the term Read more…
There has been a lot of soul-searching in mainstream media in the past week, following Shane Smith‘s scathing health check at this year’s MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh international TV festival. The lecture should be obligatory viewing for anyone interested in media in general, but also for those of us Read more…
John Perry Barlow’s A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace was published 20 years ago. While it is something that tends to concern mostly Internet regulation theorists, it is surprising just how relevant it continues to be. The text usually deserves a mention in some of the most cited works on Read more…
Last Sunday night Citizenfour, the Laura Poitras documentary about Edward Snowden, won the Oscar for best documentary. This is a great development for those of us who believe that the Snowden revelations constitute one of the most important events of our time, and hopefully it will prompt a wider examination Read more…