Category: digital democracy

Digital threats to democracy: Russia and China ‘weaponizing new technologies’

     

As digital threats to democracy multiply, the U.S. military blocked Internet access to an infamous Russian entity seeking to sow discord among Americans during the 2018 midterms, several U.S. officials… Read more »

Disinformation “deleterious to liberal democracies’ values, interests and security”

     

The spread of Chinese firms like Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu raises concerns that the Chinese model of digital authoritarianism is creeping abroad, putting the future of the Internet at risk, notes… Read more »

Microsoft detects hacking targeting European democracy groups

     

A hacking group has targeted European democratic institutions including think tanks and non-profit groups ahead of highly anticipated EU parliamentary elections in May, Microsoft said. The company said Tuesday that a… Read more »

Is technology strengthening authoritarianism relative to democracy?

     

Foreign Affairs, which has published a number of pieces dealing with technology and authoritarianism, asked a broad pool of experts whether technological change today is strengthening authoritarianism relative to democracy. In the past, the assumption was that… Read more »

Artificial intelligence a tool in fight against fake news?

     

A coalition of European human and digital rights groups has signed an open letter to Facebook  demanding far greater transparency about how its platform distributes and amplifies political ads ahead of elections to… Read more »

Democracies need ‘new capabilities’ to counter information warfare

     

Democracies need to develop “new capabilities” to counter authoritarians’ information warfare, says a senior U.S. official. “We need to give renewed emphasis to the information environment,” said Andrew Knaggs, deputy… Read more »

Russian efforts to subvert democracies demand counter info-ops campaign

     

  Vladimir Putin is committed to dividing and destroying the West’s democracies, according to a former confidante. From our conversations in 1992, I realized that Mr. Putin understood that it… Read more »

Intell chiefs warn of ‘coming ideological battle’ with resurgent authoritarians

     

  Liberal democracies should prepare for “the coming ideological battle” with newly resurgent authoritarian powers, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee heard on Tuesday. “China and Russia are more aligned than… Read more »

How to detoxify the Internet

     

Jigsaw, the Alphabet unit that aims to make the world safer through technology, is expanding its Project Shield technology that protects against distributed denial of services attacks to European political organizations, campaigns, and candidates,… Read more »

Are social media platforms ‘rotting democracy from within’?

     

  Facebook has entered a new era of cautious glasnost, inviting researchers to look ‘under the hood’ of various aspects of its operations, and understand how it formulates and implements… Read more »