By Gregory Maus/foreign affairs Dictators constantly face a dilemma: crushing dissent to terrify (but anger) the populace or tolerating protests and offering reforms to keep the public at bay (but embolden dissidents in the process). Instead of relying on gut instinct, experience, or historical precedent, autocrats now have advances in data analytics and…
OCTOBER 24, 2013 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ONLINE COMMENTS POSTED BY MARIA KONNIKOV Several weeks ago, on September 24th, Popular Science announced that it would banish comments from its Web site. The editors argued that Internet comments, particularly anonymous ones, undermine the integrity of science and lead to a culture of aggression and mockery that hinders substantive discourse. “Even a…
The ACLU has obtained internal IRS documents that say Americans enjoy “generally no privacy” in their e-mail messages, Facebook chats, and other electronic communications. Internal Revenue Service doesn’t seem to believe it needs a search warrant before reading your e-mail. Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers says that Americans enjoy “generally no privacy” in…
FEBRUARY 19th Mandiant, a security firm, released a report alleging that hackers from a Chinese military outfit known as Unit 61398 were probably behind attacks against more than a hundred companies and government agencies around the world. Without delving into the geopolitics of the the incident, involvement in which the Chinese authorities vehemently deny…
New research reveals that we’re more focused and creative in the great outdoors By Kevin Charles Redmon, Have you been staring cow-eyed at a computer all morning? Fiddling with your iPhone in line at Starbucks? Checking Twitter and ESPN every four minutes on your tablet? Good. Here’s a little quiz. What one word…
SINCE broadband began its inexorable spread at the start of this millennium, Internet use has expanded at a cosmic rate. Last year, the number of Internet users topped 2.4 billion — more than a third of all humans on the planet. The time spent on the screen was 16 hours per week globally —…
Art by John Gara. How Pinterest Is Killing Feminism This isn’t where the internet was supposed to take us. Posted about a day ago One in five women over the age of 18 who regularly use the internet is on Pinterest, which had an estimated 23 million users users as of July. It also has an…
Automated platforms are now “writing” news Can technology be autonomous? Does it lead a life of its own and operate independently of human guidance? From the French theologian Jacques Ellul to the Unabomber, this used to be widely accepted. Today, however, most historians and sociologists of technology dismiss it as naive and inaccurate….
For every exciting advance we make, there’s someone on the other side that is threatened by it There is no question that Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm headed up by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, has become a major force since it was founded back in 2009. The young VC…
TWEETER AGAIN AI WEI, a prominent Chinese artist and critic of the government, has begun to probe the limits of the strict conditions that set by the authorities upon his release from custody seven weeks ago. First it was a toe dipped back into online social-networking, a medium he had…