democracy

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The Liberal government's recent proposal for regulating social media platforms, the Online Harms Act (Bill C-63), comes as the final act in a promised trilogy of bills aimed at bringing some order to the digital world. After contentious attempts to address the fallout from the Online News Act and the threat from…

It was just the two of us, strangers on a crimson wasteland of an alien planet, surrounded by swarming giant bugs whose only purpose was to rip us to shreds. We'd cleared out the oozing nests, successfully launched the ICBM, and reached our extraction zone to get the hell out. But as we waited for our transport, the bugs overwhelmed us. The auto turret we'd put down was destroyed, I was out of clips for my heavy machine gun, no grenades. We were running around, shooting at the ocean of insects at our heels, counting down…

It has been called the permacrisis – a state of perpetual turbulence that folds geopolitical tension into cultural polarisation and spins it all around in a furious vortex. It can feel like being knocked over in the sea, unsure which way is up, afraid that another wave will strike the moment you breach the surface. The usual political narratives aren’t adequate to explain what is happening. These books go deeper.To even stand a chance of running for parliament, candidates must pass through a party selection process that…

In a year when several countries, including India and the US will have elections, addressing artificial intelligence-generated misinformation that could deceive voters is an urgent global threat that requires various stakeholders such as the governments and the technology industry to come together, said Dana Rao, executive vice president and chief trust officer at software major Adobe. Rao, however, cautioned that regulations should not stifle innovation."Government and industry have to work together in order to have a…

Credit: CC0 Public Domain According to 84% of people in Germany, misinformation that is deliberately spread online is a big or even a very big threat to German society. Moreover, 81% believe that disinformation jeopardizes democracy and social cohesion. Those are the findings from the Bertelsmann Stiftung's new study "Disconcerted Public." "Most…

It’s common knowledge that technology had a role in swaying voters in the 2016 and 2020 elections.To add an additional layer of complications to the upcoming elections in the U.S., artificial intelligence will likely play a heavier hand. While AI has been utilized in a multitude of ways in society, there are growing concerns about the use of generative AI during this election season, which may manipulate voters and undermine the elections.CLICK TO GET KURT’S FREE CYBERGUY NEWSLETTER WITH SECURITY ALERTS, QUICK VIDEO…

By Jocelyn Noveck | Associated Press “Why are you teaching us to be so rude?” the elderly village woman asks a Bhutanese election official in “The Monk and the Gun.” It’s a question both poignant and biting, because the “teaching” this woman is resisting is something much of the outside world considers a basic human right: the right to vote. For a piercing refresher lesson on democracy, one wouldn’t necessarily think of rural Bhutan as the first place to look. For one thing, democratic elections only came to the tiny,…

Will not many men have many minds?” Abigail Adams asked her husband in a letter in November 1775. The American colonies were at war with Britain and founding father John Adams was in Philadelphia, making the case for independence and a new form of self-government. “I wish I knew what mighty things were fabricating,” she wrote. Not being there when notions of people power were being debated was agony for the future president’s most trusted adviser. What if democracy didn’t prove to be any less troublesome than monarchy? “I…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain People doing jobs once considered non-controversial—public health workers, librarians, election workers, school board officers—are increasingly bullied online, threatened and swept into the vortex of partisan vitriol. Public officials face an alarming rise in "swatting," a dangerous practice in which SWAT teams are…

January 30, 20244 min readDisinformation abounds, and it can kill. Fortunately, it can often be unambiguously identifiedBy Stephan Lewandowsky, Sander van der Linden & Andy NormanHouse Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) speaks to reporters before heading into a House Republican caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol on September 19, 2023 in Washington, DC. Disinformation is the coin of the modern realm. Vaccine denial, climate denial, election denial and war-crime denial have joined the grotesque denial of the…