Google has deplatformed, or banned from its environs, numerous articulate and high profile conservative spokesmen such as Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Roberts, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Heather MacDonald, Steven Harper, Robert Florczak, Dennis Prager. This is the merest tip of the iceberg in this regard. But does not this private company have a right to say “Yea”...
Read More
But They Have Enemies Trump Could Work With, If He Would Focus
See, earlier: Google vs. Trump: “The Good Censor” On Collision Course With The Patriot President Needless to say, Journofa/ politicians are demanding more tech censorship following last week’s tragic shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand. The alleged killer, Brenton Tarrant, appears to have been a frequent 8chan user, he livestreamed his attack on Facebook, and his...
Read MoreMy late friend Christopher Hitchens once told me that his American friends often expressed surprise at the number of articles and books he was able to produce. He said that there was a simple reason for his high productivity, which was: “I never watch television.” He was definitely telling the truth about this, since the...
Read More
I have to begin this analysis by asking for your understanding for the fact that it will include a lot of full-length quotes. Under normal circumstances, I would have simply provided links, but considering the topic I will be discussing, and how some things suddenly “disappear” on the Internet, full-length quotes is probably the best...
Read MoreWe all live in the Age of the Algorithm. So here’s a story that not only encapsulates the age, but dwells on how the algorithm obsession can go horribly wrong. It all started when Facebook censored the iconic photo of «napalm girl» Kim Phuch, which became a symbol of the Vietnam War recognized all over...
Read MoreIt is widely understood that a number of federal government agencies monitor and even seek to infiltrate jihadist websites. But a program initiated in 2009 to debate the visitors to extremist Islamic sites has yet to find a comfortable organizational niche. The so-called “counterpropaganda” effort against the terrorist Internet is run out of the White...
Read More
The Internet and Social Fragmentaion
The existence of the internet may not be news in most places, nor that it does things astonishing to those alive before the net and boring to those who came after. But I wonder whether the net might have underlying consequences perhaps not well understood. In particular, I wonder how to measure the influence of...
Read More
Birth of What Will Prove a Short Siege
I see with no surprise that Washington is stepping up its campaign to censor the internet. It had to come, and will succeed. It will put paid forever to America’s flirtation with freedom. The country was never really a democracy, meaning a polity in which final power rested with the people. The voters have always...
Read MoreDesktop “Militants” and Public Intellectuals
Invited paper to be read at the “Symposium on Re-Publicness” Sponsored by the Chamber of Electrical Engineers. Ankara Turkey, December 9 – 10, 2011 Introduction The relation of information technology (IT) and more specifically the internet, to politics is a central issue facing contemporary social movements. Like many previous scientific advances the IT innovations have...
Read MoreAmerica’s Problematic Internet Strategy I have an article up at Asia Times, US Internet Declaration Bugs China, about Secretary Clinton’s “freedom to connect” speech and its implications for China. In this context, it is interesting to recall how middle class priorities can get repackaged as legal rights and essential human freedoms. Back in 1996, when...
Read More
The Internet has changed many things; for example, remember opening a letter from an old friend? I am afraid our children will never do that, and if you don’t have children, there is a good chance you are young enough to never have done it yourself. Personal communication has changed immensely, mostly by format and...
Read More
The discussion of Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 has focused on the features of websites and the internet in general. The categorization provides at least one way to see the web progressing and it creates potentials for 3.0, which still lies almost entirely in the future. Many bash this as hype and techno-talk, but it...
Read MoreA report from the Front Line in the Cyberwar
The Information Warfare Monitor (a joint venture of Toronto University’s Citizen Lab at the Munke Centre for International Studies and a Canadian think-tank called SecDev) teamed up with the Tibetan Government in Exile for a nine-month multi-continent investigation to develop a remarkable report on cyberwarfare operations targeting areas of concern to the People’s Republic of...
Read More