Global Domain Name and Internet Policy News
[news release] Links between internet adoption and psychological well-being are small at most, despite popular assumptions about the negative psychological effects of internet technologies and platforms, according to a major international study published today by the Oxford Internet Institute.
[news release] The largest scientific study ever conducted, investigating the spread of Facebook across the globe found no evidence that the social media platform’s worldwide penetration is linked to widespread psychological harm.
When the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic in March 2020, slightly more than half of the world’s citizens had access to the internet. Connectivity allowed many people to work, receive services, and socialize without physical contact—a key factor in limiting the virus’s spread. Did people with internet access, then, benefit from reduced exposure to COVID-19?
Hype? Hope? Hell? Maybe all three. Experts are split about the likely evolution of a truly immersive ‘metaverse.’ They expect that augmented- and mixed-reality enhancements will become more useful in people’s daily lives. Many worry that current online problems may be magnified if Web3 development is led by those who built today’s dominant web platforms
Lies and conspiracy theories about Covid-19, which have amassed millions of views and are accessible to young children, have been available on the social media platform TikTok for months.
The largest independent study of hate on TikTok has found anti-Asian and pro-Nazi videos are racking up millions of views, often using pop songs to evade the platform’s auto-moderators.
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.
This report has been produced at the request of the Australian Government to support advancement of the 2017 G20 Roadmap for Digitalisation: Policies for a Digital Future, in particular its dimension on supporting the equitable participation of women in the digital economy. It aims to provide policy directions for consideration by all governments, including G20 economies’ governments through identifying, discussing and analysing a range of drivers at the root of the digital gender divide. In bolstering the evidence base and drawing attention tocritical policy areas, the analysis complements the important initiative of the 2018 Argentinian G20 Presidency to share those policies, actions and national practices that have had a significant and measurable impact in bridging the digital gender divide, and supports Argentina’s approach of mainstreaming gender across the G20 agenda.
A plurality of experts predict that sweeping societal change will make life mostly worse for most people as greater inequality, rising authoritarianism and rampant misinformation take hold in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, according to a new report by Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center and Pew Research Center. Still, a portion believe life will be better in a ‘tele-everything’ world where workplaces, health care and social activity improve.
In 2011, as the hunt for Osama bin Laden was intensifying and honing in on a region of Pakistan, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used a fake hepatitis vaccination campaign as part of its intelligence operation. The campaign went door to door, under the pretense of public health, in the hope of finding evidence of bin Laden’s hideout.