My friend Morten Rand-Hendriksen and I used to spend a few days every summer in Europe putting the world to rights. We can’t do that anymore, so we did it virtually. We recorded a chat about legislative threats to freedom of expression, and their potential impacts on open source software communities and projects. Read More
Here are some links to media quotes, articles, and talks I gave in 2020-2021, mostly in a professional capacity for Open Rights Group (my then-employer), on the Online Safety Bill as well as on various post-Brexit UK privacy issues.
This week, my professional work involved a lot of time spent on the interplay between privacy, data rights, and immigration. In the post-Brexit era, we tend to think of those issues as they are now, meaning the political manifestation of xenophobia, racism, and the erosion of fundamental rights. For me, however, my interest in these issues goes a lot farther back. Read More
In my professional work, the UK’s draft Online Safety Bill is currently taking up most of my time. There’s as much going on behind the scenes as there is going on publicly, including the considerable writing, blogging, and media quotes I’m doing on the topic (and there’s a lot more to come over the next few weeks). Read More
Over the past year, I had the privilege of contributing to a UNICEF manifesto on the better governance of children’s data. I’m thrilled to finally announce that the manifesto has been published. We hope that governments and policymakers will use it to put young people at the centre of their decisions. Read More
This year, Spawn of Wonk has been studying geography. A discussion about the curriculum led me to dig out my crispy, moulding, but decidedly intact handwritten notes from the political geography course I took as an undergraduate.
And wonder of wonders, there’s half a page of notes on “Political Geography and the Internet.” When you hold it in the light of what I work on every day, it’s ever so slightly prophetic.
So here’s what we trainee diplomats in international politics schools were getting to grips with at the turn of the millennium. One of these links, amazingly, still works. My handwriting was as bad then as it is now.
Political geography and the internet
October 18, 1999
*22 years later, as government commissions a £200 million nationalist yacht, we are arguably right back at Mackinder and Mahan.
At least once a month, the policy sphere has to put up with another round of politicians banging the table about the internet being an “unregulated wild west.” The trope prevails because many groups deliberately adopt it as a campaigning tactic. They find a sympathetic politician, whisper in their ear that the internet is an “unregulated wild west” and tell them that they – THEY – could be the swashbuckling sheriff riding in to be the hero. Grandiose statements are made. Political egos are stroked. Campaigns meet their KPIs. Rinse and repeat. Read More
I went on the Techdirt podcast to discuss the recent push, by governments and media alike, to scapegoat intermediary liability law where social safety nets have failed. I discussed the UK’s upcoming online harms framework as an example of a government unabashedly seeking to do just that, instead of mending the societal infrastructure it is wholly responsible for stripping to the bone.
While talking about the UK, this is a wonderful podcast episode on platform liability. As we work on the #DSA and EU internet regulation, we should take this into account. https://t.co/LsgXNAQrz4
— Dita Charanzová (@charanzova) February 17, 2021
So that’s that. It’s done. We’re out. Now what? What’s ahead for internet regulation in the UK in 2021? What’s the fight I’m resting up for?
A status update from the front lines of tech policy.
Napoleon: I bring you great news. Mr Pilkington and I have reached an agreement. From now on, we will protect our young workers from algorithmic profiling by Big Farm through the Piglet’s Code!
Benjamin: That’s great, but I’m not too worried about Big Farm. Our piglets have had their lives turned upside down because they lost their pasture places because of that dang Agriculture-level exam algorithim. Can they use the Code to defend themselves?
Napoleon: LOL, you’re joking right? The Piglet’s Code only applies to Information Society Services providing online public services. Public authorities are exempt, because we know best what’s in their own interest. Anyway, stop interrupting me, swine.
Napoleon clears his throat.
As we prepare to exit the Pastoral Union, we are in a uniqely strong position to carve out a uniquely Manor Farm model of regulation. We will do so by making Manor Farm the safest place in the world to be a free range animal through the Online Farms Framework.
Clover: Can I ask a question? The Swine Flu app you made us all use started popping up some really strange messages, like saying I’d get less hay if I didn’t upload the details of all the other animals on the Farm. I also went down to Mr Frederick’s field where the really good apples are, and the app told me I was going too far away from Manor Farm and had to get back right away. Doesn’t the Online Farms Framework protect us from that? Also, for that matter, Jessie and Bluebell’s puppies tested positive, and now no one’s seen them in weeks. Where’d they go?
Napoleon: My God, don’t you care about the puppies? We’ve taken them someplace where they will be protected. And that’s why we’re asking you to disclose every animal you’ve been in contact with immediately, and to share your location with us at all times. It’s for your own safety. Anyway, the Online Farms Framework does not apply to public order or national emergencies, such as the one I’m going to declare right now.
Clover: What?
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but already it was impossible to say which was which.
