Category: digital democracy

‘Demand for Deceit’: What drives disinformation

     

Russian operatives and other foreign actors are deliberately targeting U.S. troops and veterans with online disinformation amplified on a massive scale, according to a leading veterans group,  The Washington Post… Read more »

Russia’s ‘Internyet’: Beginning of the end of the open era?

     

The United States “needs to be prepared for retaliation in the hard cyber space and soft information space” after killing Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, says a top expert at the… Read more »

‘The End of Techo-Utopianism’: Can technology destroy democracy?

     

….or will algorithms someday be used to optimize the ballot box, The Economist asks in a must-read long essay: @TheEconomist When it comes to eroding an existing democracy, rather than… Read more »

China ramping up blueprint for digital totalitarian state

     

Chinese authorities are knitting together old and state-of-the-art technologies — phone scanners, facial-recognition cameras, face and fingerprint databases and many others — into sweeping tools for authoritarian control, according to police and private… Read more »

Why China’s TikTok is a national security concern

     

TikTok, the short-form video app that’s been downloaded 1.5 billion times, is one of the most exciting and goofiest places on the internet, and possibly the only truly fun social… Read more »

‘Distortion, dissembling and digital skulduggery’: Disinformation becoming normalized in elections

     

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think-tank, is warning that ‘disinformation is becoming normalized‘ in elections, adding that it was ‘taken aback’ by the level of deceit in the… Read more »

As disinformation spreads, ‘microtargeting’ advertising tools may threaten democracy

     

  As Facebook sought to recover from its disastrous 2016 election season, company officials debated ways to curb distortions and disinformation on the platform. One of the most potentially powerful… Read more »

How to stop the ‘greatest propaganda machine in history’ from warping democracy

     

How to distinguish fact from fiction in an age where misinformation is dangerously pandemic? The Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss asks, drawing on lessons from the nonprofit News Literacy Project and the educational… Read more »

Demystifying deepfakes: Tracking global disinformation narratives

     

  The top U.S. representative in Taiwan says Washington is working with it to combat efforts by Beijing to influence upcoming elections on the island, AP reports. The U.S. is… Read more »

Countering Truth Decay: Digital tech leaves democracy in ‘permanent flux’

     

Hillary Clinton says she’s “dumbfounded” that the U.K. government has failed to release a report on Russian influence in British politics before the country holds a national election next month…. Read more »