Disinformation during emergencies (DiE) can critically undermine government efforts to mitigate socioeconomic harm and damage the relationship between the state and citizens. With the production of nuclear power growing in multiple countries and widespread concern over generative-AI-fueled disinformation online, we are researching the impact of DiE on transnational nuclear emergency responses....
In May 2023, presidential and parliamentary elections took place in Türkiye, which constituted an important step in the process of democratization. On May 14, 2023, the first round of the elections failed to secure a majority for the presidency, but the parliamentary elections were completed and the majority in the...
1 May, 2023 Who’s a VLOP and who’s a VLOSER? Alibaba, Amazon, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter and Wikipedia are among the entities that have been designated "Very Large Online Platforms'' (VLOPs) by the European Commission. Google search and Bing have been designated Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSErs). All will...
Scaling properties have shown time and again to be important to networked communication. Think of the introduction of switches in early telephone exchanges, improvements in time or code division multiplexing in wireless or optical networks, or packet switching on the Internet, all of which impacted the networks’ size, performance, and...
March 1, 2023 TikTok Ban would repeal free speech protections A House Committee is set to vote on their attempt to ban TikTok. The bill empowers the president to impose sanctions on any entity that operates a “connected software application” subject to the influence of China, but tries to skirt...
February 16, 2023 The search landscape is shifting Search platforms are in fierce competition to integrate large language model-based generative AI in an effort to better understand users’ natural language queries, provide more informative search results, and differentiate in other regards (e.g., accuracy, privacy). Most attention has focused on Microsoft...
February 2, 2023 DoJ’s pointless swing at Google adtech On Jan 24, the Justice Department, along with the Attorneys General of eight states, filed a civil antitrust suit against Google for monopolizing multiple digital advertising technology products, including its ad publisher, exchange, and advertiser network platforms. The complaint is the...
January 16, 2022 IGP paper on TikTok makes waves On January 9 IGP released a threat analysis of TikTok that debunked claims that the popular short video app is a national security threat. Until now, the “ban TikTok” debate has never been subjected to critical scrutiny, and no one has...
We speak endlessly of the value of "data" in the digital economy, and the platforms' alleged "extraction" of value from it. But this emphasis on data, data, data can be misleading. Platforms compete for users, for larger "audiences," not for "data." I say "audiences" for lack of a better word....
Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter last week. This process was accompanied by a fascinating public process, which reveals how politicized and polarized American social media have become. We have two factions competing for power; one has captured the Democratic party, the other has captured the Republican Party. The...
“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.”
