I was nosing around Facebook not long ago, doing the opposite of minding my own business, when I came to a stranger’s post, visible via an out-of-touch university friend. It […]
Ideas
Trending topics and news from the Ideas category
Back to news homeI’m Not a Reporter. But I’m Verified as One on Twitter
I never called myself a journalist until Twitter made me. I’m an attorney, activist, and faculty member, but it was only by using the “journalist” label that I was able […]
QAnon Pivots Its Exiled Online Movement to the Real World
The crowd pulsed as more than 1,500 attendees stamped and sang “We’re Not Gonna Take It!” While the For God & Country Patriot Roundup, a QAnon-linked conference in Dallas in […]
Boston Dynamics, BTS, and Ballet: The Next Act for Robotics
There’s a scene in Swan Lake where the hunky, crossbow-toting protagonist, Prince Siegfried, loses his swan princess, Odette, in an enchanted forest. Suddenly, he finds himself confronted by dozens of […]
Global Democracies Need to Align to Fight Disinformation
As the US prepares for next year’s midterm elections, and the slew of foreign and domestic online disinformation and propaganda likely to accompany it, it is crucial to develop sensible […]
A Case Against the Peeping Tom Theory of Privacy
As compelling as that Apple ad is, the Peeping Tom narrative doesn’t capture the collective dimension of data privacy. The truth, as the tech analyst Ben Thompson points out, is […]
Authoritarian Regimes Could Exploit Cries of ‘Deepfake’
A viral video shows a young woman conducting an exercise class on a roundabout in the Burmese capital, Nyapyidaw. Behind her a military convoy approaches a checkpoint to go conduct […]
New York City’s Surveillance Battle Offers National Lessons
In January, when New York’s Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act went into effect, the City of New York Police Department was suddenly forced to detail the tools it had […]
Let Fire Stations and EMS Crews Administer Covid Vaccines
Vaccinating the masses against Covid-19 is fraught with challenges. Despite deployment in sophisticated health care institutions, less than 46 percent of the available vaccine stock has reached the arms of […]
President Biden, Please Don’t Get Into Carbon Farming
What do climate advocates have in common with fossil fuel companies, auto firms, and farm lobbyists? Not much, yet all are joining hands to promote “carbon farming” as a form […]