The publication of Digital Rights in Closing Civic Space by the African Digital Rights Network is the first comprehensive analysis of the range of digital technologies and tactics being used across Africa by citizens to open democratic space online and by governments to close it down…
In this episode of the IDS podcast series Between the Lines I discuss with Professor Phillip Howard his latest book ‘Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives’
In 2020 Donald Trump was reportedly the biggest source of political disinformation in the world, fuelling social unrest, voter supression, and distrust in democracy. The US election forced us to stare over the precipice at what happens if the political deployment of digital disinformation is allowed to go unchecked…
In this episode of the IDS Between the Lines podcast, I speak to Serena Natile to discuss her book, ‘The Exclusionary Politics of Digital Financial Inclusion: mobile money, gendered walls’, in which she uses the example of Kenya’s extremely popular mPesa programme to critique mobile money more generally as part of a historical succession of finance solutionism. Serena proposes an alternative strategy for gender equality in the form of a politics of redistribution to guide future digital financial inclusion projects…
Co-authored with Becky Faith and first published here by the Institute of Development Studies. As Covid-19 tracing apps proliferate this month, governments of all hues will gain the ability to track citizen movements in real time and to collect the largest ever trove of personal and real-time location data in history. This could save thousands of lives. It could also be a historic inflection point in civil liberties, the depth and scale of which was unimaginable to George Orwell or…
The Principles for Digital Development were written in 2012 by a group of international donors and multilateral organisations. They are a great point of reference to guide practitioners applying digital technologies to development programs. In 2015 USAID led a successful process to recruit 50 other agencies to sign-up the Principles including the World Bank and DFID. Who could be against the good advice provided by the Principles (below), which include Use Open Standards and Open Source Software; Reuse and Improve; Address Privacy and Security; Design With The User and Be Collaborative? I support these principles whole-heartedly…
Toxic masculinity and everyday sexism create a hostile environment for women in technology workplaces and in online spaces. In an increasingly digital world the male-domination of technology design, software production, and digital content is a serious problem that demands urgent remedy…
Following a popular Twitter Thread I wrote on this subject recently, I thought it might be useful to have these all in one place…
Richard Heeks recently asked whether the emerging relationship between digital technology and international development should be referred to as “Digital Development” or “Digital-for-Development”. I use these two terms to refer to different things…
Nothing is more practical than rules to guide thinking. In this post I share the ten rules I use to think about technology and society…