Welcome to The Web This Week, a weekly rundown of stories our team has been reading. Want to share it with a friend? They can sign up here.
|
|
Snowden is vindicated - Seven years after NSA contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the mass surveillance of Americans’ telephone records, an appeals court has found the program was unlawful (Reuters). We urge all governments to respect and protect people’s fundamental online privacy and data rights.
Brazil adopts its answer to GDPR - The Brazilian Senate passed an amendment that activated new data protection regulations which relate to how personal information is treated online and offline. However, the National Data Protection Authority, tasked with enforcing the rules, hasn’t yet been formed (ZDNet).
Massive data breach in South Africa - Data broker Experian confirmed that information from a massive data breach has leaked on to the internet, despite initially claiming the breach had been contained. As many as 24 million South Africans and 800,000 businesses are potentially compromised (Daily Maverick).
STUDY - Replication: Why We Still Can’t Browse in Peace: On the Uniqueness and Reidentifiability of Web Browsing Histories, Sarah Bird, Ilana Segall, and Martin Lopatka, Mozilla
PUBLICATION - Handbook on data protection in humanitarian action, Christopher Kuner and Massimo Marelli, ICRC
|
|
Conspiracies and tower burnings - In a remote Peruvian village, eight engineers were taken hostage after 5G conspiracy theories fused with a long-standing mistrust of outsiders (Rest of World). Misinformation about Covid-19 has dangerous consequences.
Doctors are looking for a cure for misinformation - We’re fighting a losing battle against medical myths and health hoaxes. In the New York Times, Seema Yasmin and Craig Spencer write that the medical community is struggling to wrestle with the pandemic while having to contend with the hoaxes being spread online.
REPORT - Failure to Act: How tech giants continue to defy calls to rein in vaccine misinformation, Center for Countering Digital Hate
|
|
We now spend an average of 2 hours and 24 minutes per person, per day using social media. Filipinos are the world's most 'social' with almost 4 hours per day, while for Japanese it's just 45 minutes. (GlobalWebIndex)
|
|
|
Lebanon’s students turn to WhatsApp for learning - After the catastrophic blast in Beirut last month, more than 55,000 students were left without classrooms. For many students and teachers, WhatsApp has become an informal distance-learning app (Rest of World).
60% tariff hikes in Zimbabwe - Econet, Zimbabwe’s largest mobile operator, has increased the cost of data bundles by 60% after receiving the go-ahead from the regulators. Consumer rights groups criticised the move, claiming the majority of subscribers will be unable to afford the high tariffs (New Zimbabwe).
Invest in digital tomorrow, today - Rwandan President Paul Kagame called for increased internet connectivity to help young people in Africa reach more opportunities to learn, work, and prosper (The New Times). A recent Unicef report finds at least a third of the world’s schoolchildren are unable to access remote learning during school closures.
|
|
Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms
|
|
|
Students quick to outsmart grading algorithms - Students at schools using virtual learning platforms that use algorithms to grade them are quickly figuring out ways to game systems. For some students getting top grades is as simple as keyword cramming (Verge).
Deepfakes go commercial - To promote the restart of live sports on its service, Hulu employed deepfake tech in its new ad, using AI video manipulation to superimpose the faces of sports stars onto body doubles (Protocol).
African leadership in AI - A piece in Forbes profiles Adji Bousso Dieng, an AI researcher from Senegal, who has been hired by Princeton’s School of Engineering and will be its first Black female faculty member. Beyond her contributions to the field of generative modelling, she is helping Africans in STEM tell stories about how they are successfully using technology to solve development challenges (Forbes).
|
|
Twenty-five years after Beijing - Two and a half decades after making a landmark speech at the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women, Hillary Clinton reflects on the progress made on women’s rights and the unfinished business of gender equality (The Atlantic).
|
|
Addressing techno-racism in the EU - In an opinion piece for EURACTIV, EDRi’s Sarah Chander argues that digital and technology policy is not properly serving people of colour. To protect the rights and freedoms of everyone in Europe, she urges EU institutions to address structural racism perpetuated and reinforced by technology.
Gaming the gig economy - Delivery drivers are devising creative ways to rig Amazon’s dispatch system by placing their phones in trees near the company’s delivery stations. As drivers resort to extreme methods to get more low-paying work, Jeff Bezos continues to rake in billions (Bloomberg).
PUBLICATION - Digital Regulation Handbook, ITU
|
|
Web Foundation in the News
|
|
|
Business Day cited the Web Foundation’s open data report on building regulatory infrastructure that enables the participation of more women in Africa’s digital transformation.
New Telegraph, Afcacia, and The Punch covered the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) and the Web Foundation’s latest research on the price and affordability of mobile devices, which was published last month.
A4AI’s affordability report was cited by Ethiopia Insight on its story on creating a competitive telecommunications industry by opening up to private and foreign investment.
Web Foundation Board Member and former A4AI Advisory Council Honorary Chair Dr Omobola Johnson was inducted into Techpoint Awards Hall of Fame for her contributions to the Nigerian tech ecosystem and her policy advocacy work.
|
|
Enjoying this newsletter? Share it with a friend! They can sign up here.
|
|
|
|
|
|