Tag Archives: India

02Sep/22

Saudi snitching app turns citizens into social media police

  • Saudi government apps seen encouraging citizen spies
  • Apps needed for greater efficiency, authorities say
  • Digital vigilantism on the rise worldwide

By Nazih Osseiran

BEIRUT, Sept 2 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A Saudi app that lets ordinary people “play the role of a police officer” may have alerted authorities to the tweets of a student whose sentencing to 34 years in jail has drawn international condemnation.
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17Aug/22

Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy

OAKLAND, Calif, Aug 15 (Reuters) – America’s tech giants are taking a modern-day crash course in India’s ancient caste system, with Apple (AAPL.O) emerging as an early leader in policies to rid Silicon Valley of a rigid hierarchy that’s segregated Indians for generations.

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11Aug/22

Scam loan apps extorting Mexicans thrive in Google Play Store

  • Menacing messages, threats spiral along with debt
  • Legal loophole creates Wild West for lending apps
  • Complaints mount but regulators powerless to act

By Diana Baptista and Avi Asher -Schapiro

MEXICO CITY, Aug 11 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A week after Pedro Figueroa borrowed 10,000 pesos ($500) from José Cash, a popular Mexican lending app, the barrage of online abuse began.

A slew of WhatsApp messages swamped his phone, threatening harm – to him and his reputation – if he did not pay. Continue reading

20Jul/22

OPINION: Meta and hate speech in India

Deborah Brown and Jayshree Bajoria are senior researchers at Human Rights Watch

Last week, Meta, formerly Facebook, released its first human rights report, which included some snippets from the pending Human Rights Impact Assessment on India. But this was not a preview of the full assessment. Rather, Meta told Human Rights Watch that it does not “have plans to publish anything further on the India HRIA,” an abdication of its commitment to transparency and due diligence.
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18Jul/22

The Cost of Living Crisis: The Human Impact

People around the world are facing increasing pressures on their day-to-day lives. Food, energy bills and living costs are rocketing as inflation reaches record levels due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and rising global instability.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation has spoken to people living in 18 countries around the world in an attempt to gauge the human impact of the crisis.
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01Jul/22

How your brainwaves could be used in criminal trials

Michel Funicelli, Teesside University

American Kevin Strickland was exonerated after spending 42 years in prison for being wrongfully convicted of a triple murder in November 2021. His 1978 conviction was based on mistaken identification of an eyewitness. The eyewitness later said that police pressured her into identifying Strickland, and attempted to have her testimony recanted but failed. She died in 2015.

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