By Kim Harrisberg | South Africa correspondent
From phishing traps to arrests based on their social media posts alone, activists from Russia to Uganda say they’re increasingly being watched for their online campaigning. |
By Kim Harrisberg | South Africa correspondent
From phishing traps to arrests based on their social media posts alone, activists from Russia to Uganda say they’re increasingly being watched for their online campaigning. |
By Samuel Woodhams | Digital rights researcher and journalist
Last week, Joe Biden sounded the alarm over the lack of child protections online during his State of the Union address. He called for a ban on the collection of kids’ personal data and the prohibition of targeted advertising to children, saying: “We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit.” |
By Samuel Woodhams | Digital rights researcher and journalist The long, turbulent history of UK’s Online Safety Bill can be traced back to 2017, with the publication of the Internet Safety Strategy green paper. Since then, the proposed legislation has gone through endless revisions, been delayed and, at times, looked like it might be dropped entirely. Continue reading |
By Samuel Woodhams | Digital rights researcher and journalist
Algorithms to determine welfare payments and detect fraud are becoming standard practice around the world. From Manchester to Melbourne, peoples’ lives are being shaped by secretive tools that determine who is eligible for what, and how much debt is owed. Although the technology has been around for some time, the outbreak of COVID-19 renewed enthusiasm for the digital welfare state and, for thousands of cash-strapped public bodies, the promise of increased efficiency and lower costs has proven irresistible. |
By Samuel Woodhams | Digital rights researcher and journalist Last week, WhatsApp announced a new proxy support feature that will help people stay connected during internet disruptions. The app is often targeted by government censors because messages on the end-to-end encrypted service can’t be intercepted, enabling people to organise protests and share critical information in private. |
By Samuel Woodhams | Digital rights researcher and journalist
Targeted online advertisements are impossible to ignore. Ads based on our browsing history, geolocation, and personal information appear constantly on our social media feeds, news articles, and streaming platforms. As the authors of a new report on the advertising surveillance industry put it: “Targeted advertising is unavoidable for anyone who owns a smartphone or goes online.” Continue reading |
Mallory Knodel,Ryan Polk,Sheetal Kumar
Published: October 05, 2022 | Center for Democracy & Technology
Mallory Knodel is Chief Technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology, Ryan Polk is Director of Internet Policy at Internet Society and Sheetal Kumar is Head of Global Engagement and Advocacy at Global Partners Digital.
At the Human Rights Council in Geneva last month, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) presented the strongest endorsement of encryption yet by the world body in its report on privacy in the digital age, underlining that the technology that leverages cryptography to secure communications, is crucial to the rights to privacy, access to information, and free expression in an online world. Continue reading
David Carroll
Published: September 29, 2022 | Parsons School of Design
David Carroll is an associate professor of media design at Parsons School of Design at The New School in New York.
Thomson Reuters Foundation — On Sept. 13 an employee of Boston’s Northeastern University was injured when a package delivered to a virtual reality research lab exploded in his hands. Like a scene from a futuristic thriller, a note accompanying the bomb accused the lab of secretly working for Facebook and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg in a plot to take over society through virtual reality. Continue reading
Yubo, a live social discovery platform for Gen Z, is the first major social media app in the world to implement comprehensive age-verification for all its users, a groundbreaking milestone in a key area of concern in online safety today. Continue reading
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