In November 2020, amidst increased conflict, violence and human rights abuses, Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology issued the Ministerial Regulation #5 (MR5). With the MR5 the Ministry has granted itself the authority to compel any individual, business entity or community that operates “electronic systems” (ESOs) to restrict or...
Strange encounters with algorithmic content moderation; the “sovereign” Russian Internet shoots itself in the foot; Biden can’t escape Trump’s China decoupling; what the Microsoft Exchange hack tells us about cybersecurity information sharing (and Microsoft) A Taste of the Future Algorithmic content regulation is beginning to reveal its peculiarities. @Swiftonsecurity noticed...
IGP and Beijing Normal University are cooperating on a joint research/conference effort to compare and contrast the American and Chinese approach to platform governance. Platform governance refers to the rules, practices, and design decisions used to influence the way multi-sided markets or information intermediaries manage users, data and content, and...
India and other Asian countries are asserting control over content on platforms. The European Commission tries to explain to the ICANN community how and why it is asserting jurisdiction over domain names. The Biden administration makes a clean break with the Trump Administration’s State Department on handling cyber issues. India’s...
The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression is suddenly interested in disinformation. It is presented as a major threat to world society, and the Special Rap would like to know how to save us from it. A report to...
Facebook’s Oversight Board is sparking discussion about global governance institutions for online content. Privacy, competition policy and cybersecurity are all implicated in the battle over enclosing platforms’ data. And an insurance company is demonstrating how cybersecurity information sharing really happens. Facebook Oversight Board sparks governance debate The Oversight Board, set...
In December 2020, a Committee of Experts (CoE)) appointed by the Indian government to deliberate on data governance released its report on Non-Personal Data Governance Framework (NPD Framework). The CoE has proposed creating national legislation and a regulator, the Non-Personal Data Authority (NPDA), to establish rights of India, Indian citizens...
The impact of social media on political communication remains a top concern worldwide. A request for comment on disinformation policy has been issued by the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression. Biden's incoming Director of National Intelligence is being pushed to support mandatory cybersecurity information sharing by the private...
Rightwing Twitter alternative Parler has become an important test case of the impact on free expression of service denials by private sector intermediaries. Parler’s status as a refuge for ultra-rightwing voices should not get in the way of an objective, long term appraisal of how social media content moderation and...
The Trump riots have stimulated a wide-ranging public debate about the meaning of free expression in the age of social media. A quick survey of the various sides and positions leads to a simple conclusion: in a political world, control of speech is not about basic rights or impersonal rules...
“In characteristically rigorous fashion, Mueller’s outstanding book punctures the alarmist myth of Internet fragmentation and helps us to understand what is really at stake as nations and other groups vie for power over the Internet.”
