David Meyer

State hijacking of social media is getting worse

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your fist in the air of digital rights news and analysis. SOCIAL MEDIA HAS BEEN HIJACKED TO INFLUENCE elections in at least 18 countries over the past year, according to Freedom House's latest Freedom on the Net report: http://bit.ly/2yZcOku "The Chinese and Russian regimes pioneered the use of surreptitious methods to distort online … Continue reading State hijacking of social media is getting worse

David Meyer

Not handing over your passwords is a terrorist offence, citizen

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your cat in the cradle of digital rights news and analysis. NOT HANDING OVER YOUR PASSWORDS IS A TERRORIST OFFENCE in the UK. I've briefly mentioned the case of Mohammad Rabbani before (http://bit.ly/2whZWQZ), but now he's been officially found guilty: http://bit.ly/2yEsztz Rabbani is the international director of human rights group Cage, an NGO that … Continue reading Not handing over your passwords is a terrorist offence, citizen

David Meyer

Bad Apple

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your home on the range of digital rights news and analysis. APPLE HAS SCRUBBED DOZENS OF VPN APPS from its Chinese App Store. Virtual private networks (VPNs) allow people to re-reroute their online activities in a way that makes it hard to tell where they are, and to read things that are … Continue reading Bad Apple

David Meyer

EU Court kicks mass surveillance yet again

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your flash in the pan of digital rights news and analysis. RUSSIANS HAVE BEEN MARCHING against the country's ever-expanding censorship of the internet. On Sunday, around a thousand people protested prominent cases of people being prosecuted for their online writings and videos. The day before, the Russian parliament passed a law prohibiting the … Continue reading EU Court kicks mass surveillance yet again

David Meyer

The war on encryption gets very silly indeed

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your bop in the bop-shoo-bop-shoo-bop of digital rights news and analysis. THE WAR ON ENCRYPTION has galloped over the threshold of farce in Australia, where prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced a surprising downgrade for the jurisdiction of mathematics. Following the UK's lead, the Australian government has announced that it will try forcing online … Continue reading The war on encryption gets very silly indeed

David Meyer

So many ways to tackle Facebook over privacy

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your paddle up the creek of digital rights news and analysis. THE WORLD OF FACEBOOK AND PRIVACY provides rich pickings this week. First up, we have the German federal cartel office signalling that it thinks the company has been breaking antitrust law with its privacy practices. The authority's investigation is almost complete, and … Continue reading So many ways to tackle Facebook over privacy

David Meyer

Here’s what the EU’s incoming digital chief thinks about digital rights

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your jiggle in the hips of digital rights news and analysis. MEET THE NEW (ALMOST) BOSS: The EU is about to get a new head of digital policy, as the old one, Germany's Günther Oettinger, has shuffled off to deal with the bloc's budget. The new "digital economy and society" commissioner-designate, a notably … Continue reading Here’s what the EU’s incoming digital chief thinks about digital rights