Reflections upon my arrival at DFRLab 360/Open Summit in Brussels. Modern democracy is on the ropes. Every major election seems like a trial of the resilience of society against dishonesty and disinformation. Narratives of voter fraud in the United States and of Ukraine’s fascist leaders on Russian state TV demonstrate…

Seek and Hide by Amy Gajda is a must-read for privacy and anti-abuse professionals. Between public outrage over digital data, the courtroom drama of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, and Elon Musk’s ranting tweets about the bots on Twitter, America is experiencing a dramatic evolution in the balance between privacy…

Content moderation alone will not fix the misinformation problem Censorship is experiencing a revival in America. In state legislatures and school boards across the land, citizens are embracing their contempt for ideas they consider objectionable, expressing their rage by exercising the well-worn path to censorship. They are identifying the books…

Imagining a world with no personally identifiable information. Automobile registration is a significant intrusion on personal privacy, with significant harms, both real and potential. The numbers displayed publicly on state-issued license plates make it possible to track the movements of specific vehicles and their operators. They can be used to…

A sequel to my 2019 post, Thank You Volodymyr Zelenskyy. On 24 February 2022, after weeks of anticipation, Russia attacked Ukraine, without provocation. The Kremlin initially spoke of concerns about NATO, despite NATO being a defensive alliance that has never challenged Russia’s established borders. On 16 March, Putin spoke of…

On the role of information platforms in support of truth and facts. In a society that recognizes freedom of thought and self-determination, general questions of truth should be decided by individuals acting with autonomy. …

The isolation of malignant GOP personalities could be Putin’s greatest gift to America. On Monday 21 February 2022, Vladimir Putin and his obedient Russian government recognized two “breakaway republics” in the Ukraine. In so doing, he created the pretext for sending more Russian soldiers to openly occupy territory recognized by…

Unfortunately, the third era may be terminal. The Internet is still immature, and so are our notions of how to govern it, for its creators, its regulators and the public at large. …