COMMENT BLOG
A remark, a critique, an opinion…
#IWD 2021: Achieving an equal future in a Covid-19 world
March, the month set aside to honour women's contributions to American history is today commemorated worldwide as "Women's history month". Achieving an equal future in a Covid-19 world is the theme of International Women's Day March 8. If there's anything that a...
Unmoored from the truth: Holding social media to account
The Washington Post (2 February 2021) reported, “Former president Donald Trump lost the 2020 election largely due to his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a post-election autopsy completed by Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio. The 27-page document...
Time to regain public trust in the media
American citizens are not alone in realising that press freedom is under attack. Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Brazilians and Filipinos – to name just a few – are also deeply concerned. They can all learn from PEN America which has put forward An Agenda for the...
Argentina: Making Access to Communication more Affordable
Affordability a major hurdle in ensuring equitable access Today, access to the internet and mobile phones is critical for people everywhere. Still, 40% of the world’s population has no access to the internet[i], with countries such as India (50%), Ethiopia (81%), and...
Silencing Trump, preserving free speech?
Following the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, the social media platforms Facebook and Twitter, followed by other online platforms, suspended and then banned President Donald Trump’s accounts due, as Twitter put it, “due to the risk of further incitement of...
New Year, new digital responsibilities
Last year – and even as recently as January 6, 2021 – saw anti-democratic tendencies and misinformation magnified by social media in several countries, contributing to near breakdowns in the rule of law. It is time for stringent regulation of social media companies...
Remembering the past to reimagine the future
Cloud storage and hard drives are today’s scrapbooks, records, and memories. In his book delete (2009), Viktor Mayer-Schönberger explored “The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age”. He writes, “As humans we do not travel ignorantly through time. With our capacity...
Empowering women by tackling online harassment and abuse
Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 says, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” In other words, online...
Speaking up for decency and dialogue
Stars on the digital Walk of Infamy are being awarded to world leaders. Former US President Donald Trump, current Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and current Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro have each received one. They have been admonished by Twitter and...
Facial recognition use and abuse
Public safety and national security are two advantages of facial recognition technology. Law enforcement agencies use the technology to identify known criminals and to find missing children or seniors. Airports are increasingly adding facial recognition technology to...
Biosurveillance can threaten human rights
Using smartphones to track and trace during the Covid-19 epidemic creates a smokescreen for wider surveillance measures that may infringe people’s right to privacy. Human rights activists are concerned that such data can be used to discriminate against migrants,...
Time to detrumpify the media
The antics of the outgoing US president have raised profound questions about the role of mass and social media in society today. How do public interest media – the kind that publish information and points of view on important issues that affect policies, lives, and...
PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Jeffrey/ACT Alliance