Dec 14, 2020 | Uncategorized
Published in the Overland. Sunday, 14 December, 2020. The proposed news media bargaining code tabled last week has been praised by many journalists. It’s also deeply flawed. The scheme requires that organisations apply to the Australian Media and Communications...
Nov 12, 2020 | Uncategorized
This election has come at a critical moment for the elite of Silicon Valley. In July, the CEOs of the big four tech companies gave evidence before the House Judiciary Committee investigating breaches of antitrust law. Since then, the Committee released their 449 page...
Sep 19, 2020 | Uncategorized
One of the central themes of our COVID-19 world has been the fortification of borders in the name of containing the virus, further solidifying the nexus between the tech industry and government. As borders in the digital century have become more dependent on bytes and...
Aug 15, 2020 | Uncategorized
[UPDATE: Jean-Sebastien Jacques resigned on 11 September 2020] When Anglo-Australian mining multinational Rio Tinto blew up two 46,000-year-old Aboriginal rock shelters in May, most people could be forgiven for believing it was not a conspiracy but a horrendous...
Jul 31, 2020 | Uncategorized
When Singapore took the lead in developing a contact tracing app to help curb the spread of COVID-19, many other nations were quick to follow, using the health crisis to justify increased surveillance. But the moment gave citizens a chance to observe their governments...
Jun 20, 2020 | Uncategorized
Hosted by Melissa Benn Featuring: Ed Miliband MP, Hilary Cottam, Christine Berry, Lizzie O’Shea and Anita Whittaker Whether or not we have a second wave of the pandemic, the post-coronavirus economic recession is going to be very severe and is already here for...
Mar 23, 2020 | Uncategorized
It’s a tragedy to lose someone prematurely, and it’s particularly painful when that person has been such an active and committed member of the digital rights community. I met Peter Tonoli over a decade ago, and throughout that time, he was a constant...
Mar 16, 2020 | Uncategorized
A SURPRISING NUMBER OF PEOPLE start their working life at McDonald’s. Paul Ryan claimed flipping burgers was central to his understanding of the American Dream. Pharrell Williams was fired three times from the chain. James Franco penned a mildly off-putting love...
Mar 1, 2020 | Uncategorized
At 10am on a Saturday, the Epping Shopping Plaza is bustling with screaming children, pensioners pushing their shopping jeeps, and parents waiting impatiently as coffee machines whir. Waxy supermarket produce gleams under fluorescent lights, home wares are stacked...
Feb 21, 2020 | Uncategorized
One of the common tropes of the digital age is that we should be worried about the AI robots that are coming to kill our jobs, kill our relationships, and ultimately even kill us. The problem is articulated often as a dystopian imagining, which we need to arrest...
Feb 18, 2020 | Uncategorized
I recently returned from a tour across four cities in the US, with eight events. First up was LA, at the beautiful Honor Fraser Gallery in Culver City. It’s a beautiful space, and with a current exhibition focusing on technology. Next stop was San Francisco,...
Jan 7, 2020 | Uncategorized
Australia is your future echo of climate catastrophe. Between four and five million hectares have burned in the last six months, an area about the size of the Netherlands, or just between the size of Maryland and West Virginia. Dozens of people have died, hundreds of...
Dec 20, 2019 | Uncategorized
To mark International Human Rights Day on 10 December 2019, the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner (OVIC) hosted a public forum on the topic of privacy as a human right. We explored the concept of privacy as an enabling human right and what this means,...
Dec 1, 2019 | Uncategorized
Discussions about digital privacy often evoke images of whistle-blowers, journalists, and intelligence agencies. But beyond this, it can sometimes feel as though the business model of corporate data mining presents few negative consequences in our daily lives. The...
Nov 11, 2019 | Uncategorized
I was grateful to receive the Human Rights Hero award at RightsCon 2019 presented by Access Now. My esteemed fellow recipients can be found here: https://www.accessnow.org/heroes-villains-awards/ Below is an edited version of my acceptance speech, about the campaign...
Sep 7, 2019 | Uncategorized
My radio interview for 3CR Earth Matters can be found here: https://www.3cr.org.au/earthmatters/episode-201909081100/future-histories-technology-isnt-neutral Can we simply innovate our way out of the present climate crisis? Or do technological fixes hide another...
Sep 7, 2019 | Uncategorized
The regulation of technology capitalism is now a mainstream topic of discussion. Privacy scandals such as the misuse of Facebook data by Cambridge Analytica, the rise of right-wing extremism, and the diminishing quality of public spaces in the digital age have...
Sep 4, 2019 | Uncategorized
Watching the family from Biloela as they have tried to avoid deportation to Sri Lanka, many people around the country have also gained an insight into the political economy of border security. Activists have turned their attention on contractor Skytraders, who flew...
Aug 23, 2019 | Uncategorized
I was interviewed for Melbourne University’s podcast about Future Histories – you can find it here https://player.whooshkaa.com/episode?id=420822 In her new book Future Histories, author and lawyer Lizzie O’Shea asks what historical social experiments like...
Aug 15, 2019 | Uncategorized
One of the most memorable characters in the television series Silicon Valley is Gavin Belson, the slick and ruthless CEO of Hooli, a Google-like company. In one of his many pep talks to staff, Belson declares: ‘I don’t know about you people, but I don’t want to live...