Milk-Man vs Sugar-Man »

7 September 2020 | netopia

No, that’s not a movie with unusually lame superheroes. Bear with me. I wrote recently about the copyright reform in South Africa. It led me to find out more, it was astonishing and oddly connected to... »

Copyright, Copyleft, Copysouth »

4 August 2020 | netopia

South African copyright law faces reform, albeit with some delay as president Ramaphosa has sent two bills back to the National Assembly for reconsideration. There are many sides to this reform, one c... »

Youtube Block Party »

31 July 2020 | netopia

Youtube does not like to block users or filter content, except when it helps their business. Youtube CEO Susanne Wojcicki wrote this on her blog: /…/it threatens to block users in the EU from vi... »

What Could Make Tech Platforms Do the Right Thing? »

9 July 2020 | netopia

There have been many candidates including pressure from policy-makers and regulators, but thus far no end of congressional hearings or EU fines have done more than dent the stock price. Calls from org... »

Good Samaritan Paradox Paradox »

12 June 2020 | Per Strömbäck

The classic example of the good Samaritan-paradox is if you intervene at a traffic accident, by moving a victim away from traffic in order to avoid them being run-over by other cars, you should not be... »

What Is Section 230 and Why Did President Trump Attack It? »

5 June 2020 | netopia

As has been widely reported, last week Twitter marked two of President Trump’s tweets with a fact-checking label, effectively saying that the US President did not speak the truth. (Perhaps no news, “a... »

The Mother of all Oversight Boards »

19 May 2020 | netopia

Pressure on Facebook shows no sign of decrease. The first line of defense – “we’re just a tech company” – did not hold. The second line – “we will hire thousands of moderators” – also failed. The late... »

RIP Henrik Pontén »

18 May 2020 | netopia

He was known to the public as the lawyer who put The Pirate Bay-operators behind bars. Henrik Pontén was Sweden’s most famous anti-pirate and around those years the target of many pirate pranks. I kno... »

EDRi’s Paper and the Two Faces of the Internet Debate »

the many tech solutions to controlling the pandemic, and the privacy of the contact tracing apps

27 April 2020 | Per Strömbäck

The conversation about the internet has two completely different understandings of technology and society clashing. On the one hand is the now nostalgic idea that the internet is a de-centralised t... »

Flattening the Curve – Why Exponential Growth in AI May Be a Mirage »

7 April 2020 | netopia

Time spent in lockdown can be used to think about the big things in life. Like artificial intelligence. Netopia has a mini-theme on artificial intelligence, with Peter Warren’s story on insuring self-... »