What do TV show predictions have to do with far-right conspiracy theories? On TikTok, an app popular with children younger than 14, there’s a very short path from one to the other.
Are we at a turning point for tackling online extremism?
Category Archives: Internet Use/New Technologies
OECD: COVID-19 crisis accentuating the need to bridge digital divides
Improved Internet connectivity and skills have helped many countries to cope with the health and economic crisis from COVID-19. Yet the pandemic has raised the bar for the digital transition and underscores the need to close the digital divides that risk leaving some people and firms worse off than others in a post-COVID world, according to a new OECD report.
Futures Report Outlines Top Trends Impacting Global Economy, Society and Technology
[news release] The new technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, such as artificial intelligence (AI), the cloud and robotics, are changing the way we live, learn and do business at a rate unprecedented in human history. This seismic shift is playing out in a world characterized by unreliable political landscapes and increasing environmental instability.
Russia’s Twitter throttling may give censors never-before-seen capabilities
Russia has implemented a novel censorship method in an ongoing effort to silence Twitter. Instead of blocking the social media site outright, the country is using previously unseen techniques to slow traffic to a crawl and make the site all but unusable for people inside the country.
Google, Facebook and Amazon face new UK regulator
A new regulator aiming to curb the dominance of tech giants has started work in the UK.
The Digital Markets Unit (DMU) will first look to create new codes of conduct for companies such as Facebook and Google and their relationship with content providers and advertisers.
Ars Technica’s non-fungible guide to NFTs
It has been nearly 10 years now since Ars Technica first described Bitcoin to readers as “the world’s first virtual currency… designed by an enigmatic, freedom-loving hacker, and currently used by the geek underground to buy and sell everything from servers to cellphone jammers.” A decade later, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are practically mainstream, and even most non-techies know the blockchain basics powering a decentralized financial revolution (or a persistent bubble, if you prefer).
U.S. Lawmakers press Big Tech CEOs on speech responsibility
The CEOs of tech giants Facebook, Twitter and Google faced a grilling in Congress Thursday as lawmakers tried to draw them into acknowledging their companies’ roles in fueling the January insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and rising COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.
Microsoft releases findings and considerations from one year of remote work in Work Trend Index
[news release] Microsoft Corp. on Monday announced findings from its first-annual Work Trend Index. Titled “The Next Great Disruption Is Hybrid Work — Are We Ready?” the report uncovers seven hybrid work trends every business leader must know as we enter a new era of work.
Technology and science move to the heart of UK security
National power will be defined not by the number of tanks and ships a country possesses but by its science and technology, and the quality of its algorithms.
That is the message of the UK’s Integrated Review, which says the government’s aim is for the country to become an innovation “superpower” by 2030.
Social media has upped its accessibility game. But deaf creators say it has a long way to go.
Chrissy Marshall has spent hours and hours scrolling through TikTok videos, deliberately liking and commenting on videos from other deaf creators and clips with small text bubbles. The 21-year-old is trying to train the app to only show her videos with captions or that use American Sign Language.