Tag Archives: censorship

Hacker-for-hire firms like NSO Group and Hacking Team have become notorious for enabling their customers to spy on vulnerable members of civil society. But as far back as a decade ago in India, a startup called Appin Technology and its subsidiaries allegedly played a similar cyber-mercenary role while attracting far …

Around dinner time one night in May, a student in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Googled “Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.” But instead of a list of links to information about the landmark US Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage, the 11th grader from La Cueva High School was redirected to a …

Terrorist groups have found a home on smaller, less well-known online platforms in recent years where they store, share, and link to content such as violent beheading videos and recruitment propaganda. Those platforms have struggled to deal with the problem due to a lack of resources and expertise, but a …

Extremist groups have begun to experiment with artificial intelligence, and in particular generative AI, in order to create a flood of new propaganda. Experts now fear the growing use of generative AI tools by these groups will overturn the work Big Tech has done in recent years to keep their …

Jeremy Wright was the first of five UK ministers charged with pushing through the British government’s landmark legislation on regulating the internet, the Online Safety Bill. The current UK government likes to brand its initiatives as “world-beating,” but for a brief period in 2019 that might have been right. Back …

When Israel issued an evacuation order from north Gaza on October 13, Shouq Al-Najjar left her house and headed south, to the city of Khan Younis, where she’s now sharing a home with 150 relatives and friends. Every day is a struggle for the basics. “Now bakeries are stretched to …

Since taking power in a coup two years ago, Myanmar’s military junta has suppressed people's rights, cracked down on opposition, and used deadly force against civilians. To enable this, officials have clamped down on people’s communications and rolled out extensive digital surveillance systems. Now, new evidence shows how people are …

The United Nations’ main internet governance body will host its next international forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 2025, the UN may take its discussions on the future of an open internet to Russia. Holding the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), back to back, in authoritarian countries notorious for their surveillance …

A special unit of the Delhi Police, reporting directly to Narendra Modi’s union government, this morning seized the laptops and phones of journalists and satirists associated with a news website, Newsclick.in. The site has been charged under a law usually used to deal with terrorism suspects, and two journalists have …

All over the world, walls are going up around the internet. For years, autocratic regimes have been in a race to heighten those walls, as their citizens develop taller and taller ladders. The more they filter and block, the more their citizens come up with clever technical solutions to access …