“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for…
Category: Politics
Chatter #153 – Emma Briant on Cambridge Analytica, Social Media, and Election Meddling
Dr Briant is one of the key researchers who uncovered the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018, with two books and two major documentary films, she is an internationally recognized expert on information warfare and propaganda. Films her research featured in include Oscar-shortlisted Netflix film The Great Hack and People You May Know. As…
“This war will never end, because powerful people fear democracy.” – Gavin O’Toole
As part of our series on how technology is changing journalism, we’re asking journalists young and old how they think the industry is evolving. Gavin O’Toole is a freelance journalist, editor and copywriter in London. He has worked for some of the UK’s leading newspapers including The Guardian, Observer and Financial Times, and…
Chatter #151 – Sophie Zhang – Whistleblowing On Facebook: Fake Engagement and Election Manipulation
Sophie Zhang is a data scientist and whistleblower who formerly worked at Facebook. From 2018 to 2020, while she was investigating “fake engagement” at Facebook, she uncovered abusive political manipulation and opposition harassment networks in 25 countries. Zhang reported that most of these subversive networks use Facebook’s organization pages, configured with human names…
Profit Over Principles: Social Media Companies Are Destroying Democracy
Kyle Taylor is the author of The Little Black Book of Data and Democracy and founder of Fair Vote UK. Fair Vote UK was set up to tackle the issue of data misuse, voter manipulation and lack of transparency in elections head-on. We are committed to ensuring the institutions that protect our democratic…
Free Speech Is Fundamental To A Free Country
“When speech is censored or suppressed, it is an affront to everyone because it prohibits our collective access to that information. Make no mistake, that is generally the intent of the suppressor.“ The majority of the debate on the subject of free speech generally revolves around an individual’s right to say something, and…
