Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The internet was first conceived as a tool to promote free expression, to foster and enliven debate, and to strengthen democratic ideals. But it didn’t quite work out that way.
Experts discuss transparency reporting requirements for the big tech companies, data sharing between companies and scholars, what a massive effort at research in this space would look like and whether it has any possibility of coming to be.
Digital repression is on the rise. Governments around the world have used tools like mass surveillance, internet blocking and disinformation to stay in power. This includes both autocratic governments and weak or illiberal democracies.
While there has been a great deal of recent debate about the respective roles of offense and defense in cybersecurity, the Colonial Pipeline episode highlights that a core policy challenge remains cultivating the resilience of U.S. critical infrastructure.
After the huge Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack disrupted the supply of gasoline on the U.S. east coast, insurance companies were cast in an unflattering light. But blaming firms that offer cyber insurance won’t deter cyber attacks.
UN member states have attempted to devise rules for state behavior in cyberspace. Yet disagreements have hampered those efforts, and the root causes of cyber instability remain.
New and emerging technologies have expanded states’ toolkit for repression and social control. The EU must decide whether tackling digital repression is a core geopolitical interest at the highest political level.
Future conversation needs to move beyond the military versus intelligence contest binary construct to more meaningfully explore how states may seek to use cyberspace for multiple objectives, either in sequence or in parallel.
Facebook’s Oversight Board has upheld the social media giant’s suspension of former president Donald Trump—for now. But stopping the spread of dangerous disinformation is a much more formidable challenge.
What has happened with the Covid-19 vaccine–its invention, production and distribution–is a telling example of the dangerous gap between technology and politics. While the scientific effort to create and produce the Covid-19 vaccine was global, the response from governments has been local.
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