November 1, 2021 Facebook tries to change the subject After becoming the scapegoat of choice for all of society’s ills, from the “death of democracy” to teenage girls’ social comparisons to amplifying hate speech, Mark Zuckerberg announced a change to the company’s name and a shift in its focus. While...
October 15, 2021 Free expression advocates win Nobel Peace Prize The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia. Announcing the award, The Nobel Committee clarified that the two working reporters were chosen for the award because they represent “a...
The Chinese Communist Party's focus on building a governance regime for cyberspace has resulted in the rapid introduction of several new laws and regulations on data governance, cybersecurity, the digital economy, and online media content. The targeting of the digital sector with so many new restrictions, laws and regulations is...
IGP at UN Internet Governance Forum The UN Internet Governance Forum announced its draft schedule. The event will be held December 6 - 10; it is planned as a face to face meeting in Katowice, Poland, but, due to the evolving Covid situation, many of the pre-events will be virtual...
IGP’s conference on “Comparative Analysis of Platform Governance in the U.S. and China” brought together 21 papers and 30 scholars and policy influencers for three days of intensive (bilingual) discussion. Digital platforms and the data they generate are now the focus of business, government and civil society all over the...
Biden didn’t “revoke” the TikTok ban President Biden issued an executive order June 9 on “Protecting Americans’ Sensitive Data from Foreign Adversaries.” The media widely reported it as “rescinding” or “revoking” two Trump executive orders that banned new downloads of WeChat and TikTok. But that framing is wildly inaccurate. First,...
Ransomware fuels talk of Bitcoin ban, Russia and the US clash over YouTube, WhatsApp backtracks on enforcing its new privacy policy, and IGP presents at the PLSC for the first time. Bitcoin and Ransomware Successful, highly disruptive ransomware attacks are prompting calls to ban Bitcoin or find ways to crack...
This week we cover some of Biden's Cybersecurity Order and a few 5G related developments. Biden’s Cybersecurity EO: Encrypted data at rest for me, why not thee? On the heels of the Colonial Pipeline, Microsoft Exchange Server, and SolarWinds incidents, the White House has issued a new Executive Order that...
China fines Ali Baba for competing vigorously; platform governance becomes a thing; reports of a digital currency war are greatly exaggerated; NSA’s “we need visibility” thesis is contested. From China, with love China’s State Administration for Market Regulation has fined Ali Baba 18.228 billion yuan (about 2.79 billion U.S. dollars)...
Facing a hostile U.S. Congress, Facebook proposes “updated Internet regulations” that push more responsibility for content regulation decisions to the government. Europe is already trying to do just that, but civil liberties groups are campaigning against it. India considers a tech nationalist approach to cryptocurrency. A taste of “updated Internet...
“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.”
