The business model of social media makes the algorithmic amplification of messages like hate speech and disinformation a lucrative proposition and a destabilizing force in a democratic society, the International… Read more »
The global prospects for democratization and democracy assistance are worse than at any time in several decades due to the culmination of six trends: a , disillusionment with the Western… Read more »
Sixty-three people died over the weekend in a crackdown by security forces against ongoing anti-government protests [HT: CFR], according to the semi-official Iraq High Commission for Human Rights. Iraq is… Read more »
Russian government-backed cyber aggression is heightening concerns from the west following a spate of high-profile incidents, prompting threats of countermeasures from the likes of Nato, the EU and UK, the… Read more »
Jamal Khashoggi and I disagreed on almost all political issues, but we agreed on one thing: that the Arab world had profoundly changed in ways that rendered the old… Read more »
China has framed Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests as a foreign-backed movement that uses “thugs” to threaten the mainland’s sovereignty. The narrative might be working within the great firewall. Outside China? Not so much,… Read more »
China is in danger of losing its grip over Tibet and Xinjiang and needs a radical reset of its ethnic policies, experts suggest. In September last year, Shohret Hoshur, a… Read more »
As strategic competitors, most notably Russia and China, engage in hostile social manipulation, such as conducting targeted social media campaigns, conspiracy theories, and sophisticated forgeries, democracies urgently need to undertake… Read more »
In countries where a free press was just beginning to emerge, a cocktail of rising authoritarianism, audience cannibalization by social media, and financial weakness has thrown it into reverse. Independent journalism… Read more »
Communication has been weaponized, used to provoke, mislead and influence the public in numerous insidious ways, argues Sophia Ignatidou, an academy fellow at Chatham House, researching AI, digital communication and… Read more »