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AI hyperscalers need to restore trust—here’s how
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the market for artificial intelligence and its associated industries are over inflated. In 2025, just five hyperscalers—Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Oracle—accounted for a capital investment of $399 billion, which will rise to over $600 billion annually in coming years.
Antitrust Issues – Tech regulation under Trump 2.0
In August of 2024, which perhaps feels like more than a lifetime ago for observers of American politics, Judge Amit P. Mehta found Google to be in breach of U.S. antitrust law.
On its current trajectory, AI is inconsistent with democracy, sustainability, and autonomy
AI has been pitched as the great solution of the modern age – but the unfettered growth of this new technology could come at the expense of everything we hold dear.
We must target the root cause of misinformation. We cannot fact check our way out of this
There are once again calls for the government to Do Something about misinformation online, following the recent stabbings at Bondi Junction and the immediate spread of speculation and false claims on social media.
Freeing the arts from the markets: a reading of Chokepoint Capitalism
‘It’s moving to hear,’ writes Jennifer Mills recently for this publication regarding the new national cultural policy and the place of artists in it, ‘that we are essential workers…
Reclaiming our cities: on Paris Marx’s Road to Nowhere
In Paris Marx’s new book, Road to Nowhere, it becomes plain that the influence of tech industry is not confined to cyberspace, but reaches into our lived environment in insidious and powerful ways.
The fall of Twitter and the work of creating democratic social spaces
At the risk of giving Elon Musk any more of what he wants—for people to talk about Elon Musk—his purchase of Twitter provides an opportunity to reflect upon the governance of online spaces.
Online safety begins with participation
When Labor announced a commitment to a ‘pen licence for the digital age’ for young people, it’s easy to see why it led to round mocking going on across social media.
The Public Square Project
Reimagining Our Digital Future. A new blueprint for a more democratic digital space.
The misinformation engine
It is now six months since Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code was passed into law, and it presents an opportunity to assess the impact of this controversial piece of legislation.
Remembering Steve Rogers, and the struggle for safe access zones
Twenty years ago this week, security guard Steve Rogers was shot and killed inside the Fertility Control Clinic in East Melbourne.
The growth of digital surveillance
Lucie Krahulcova is an international digital rights activist and Executive Director of Digital Rights Watch. Lizzie O’Shea is a writer, lawyer and co-founder and chair of Digital Rights Watch. “It should worry us that we are losing rights as surveillance systems grow...
Vaccine passports are catnip for Big Tech
Digital certificates must be carefully scrutinized to avoid mission creep
Searching the past for a new digital democracy
Lawyer and writer Lizzie O’Shea thinks Lovelace has lessons for us today about we deal with digital technology.
Why the COVIDSafe app didn’t work
Tuesday, March 2, 2021. ABC The Drum Twitter thread.
Alternative Futures of the Paris Commune
Wednesday, 17 March, 2021. Reflection on the revolutionary vision of the Communards, 150 years after the establishment of the Paris Commune.
‘Promising Young Woman’ and the causes of women’s rage
Sunday, 14 March, 2021. Spoiler alert! Watch the movie before reading.
Rape allegations reveal Australia’s toxic political culture
Sunday, March 13, 2021. More than 40 women’s protest marches are planned nationwide.
Treated like children
March 11 2021. Public policy should not be left to the cult of personality.
The Judgment of Paris – Facebook VS the Communards
March 2021. For a modern web platform to take down art on account of indecency is to replicate the behavior of those stuffy gatekeepers at the Salon of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.