Technology & democracy
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AI
Australia isn’t ready for the first AI-election, electoral commission warns
Australia’s top election official says deepfakes and AI-content pose unprecedented challenges to election integrity.
- by James Massola
Latest
Opinion
Opinion
Joe Biden’s TikTok crusade ignores the real China threat
Unless his administration can pivot rapidly, Joe Biden’s legacy risks being marked by well-intentioned failures.
- by Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez
Australia can fine tech companies $782,500. In other countries, penalties can reach $35 million
Australia is looking at overseas examples as it weighs up increasing the penalties it can issue to major companies, under a review of its online safety regime.
- by Natassia Chrysanthos
US Senate passes bill forcing TikTok sale
A decision made by House Republicans last week to attach the TikTok bill to the high-priority Ukraine and Israel package helped expedite its passage in Congress.
- by Haleluya Hadero
Israel is using face recognition to identify, and misidentify, Gazans
A mass surveillance effort is collecting and cataloguing the faces of Palestinians without their knowledge or consent, according to Israeli spies and officials.
- by Sheera Frenkel
Opinion
Opinion
Trump just shook up America’s war on TikTok
If there’s one thing that unites an otherwise bitterly divided Washington, it’s China. But Donald Trump has just stirred the pot.
- by Stephen Bartholomeusz
Biden orders probe of Chinese-made ‘smart cars’ spying risks
The move is the latest attempt by the White House to safeguard the US against the growing threat of Chinese cyberattacks.
- by Farrah Tomazin
‘You have blood on your hands’: Tech CEOs grilled over child sexual exploitation
In the hearing room, dozens of parents had stood waiting for the CEOs to enter, holding pictures of their children who had been sexually exploited on social media.
- by David Shepardson and Makini Brice
Opinion
For subscribers
The only privacy we have left is what’s in our heads, and that will soon be public
New consumer technologies that read patterns in the brain’s electrical activity and then influence them will supercharge the spread of disinformation and threaten democracy.
- by Miah Hammond-Errey and Tom Barrett
Frances Haugen blew the whistle on Facebook two years ago. This is what happened next
The former Facebook employee, in Australia for South by Southwest, says online platforms invested heavily in safety after her disclosures, only to wind them back.
- by Caitlin Fitzsimmons
Analysis
Social media
Why haven’t we regulated social media yet?
The story of Robert Oppenheimer and the atom bomb is reminder of how technology needs to be brought in line with society. But social media defies this expectation.
- by Chris Zappone