In poor and developing countries, school closures can have a devastating impact on children.
COVID-19 Is Widening Educational Inequalities for Children Around the World
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Fighting Covid-19 — And Repression — in Kashmir
The Indian government’s repression of doctors and restrictions on the Internet could make the pandemic far deadlier in the formerly autonomous region.
Where the TPP Could Lose
Activists in Chile have made their government draw red lines on the corporate-friendly investment deal. North Americans could take a lesson.
A New Crackdown in Belarus
Ahead of elections later this year, the state once dubbed “Europe’s Last Dictatorship” is launching a fierce new crackdown on journalists and human rights defenders.
Review: Consent of the Networked
Internet policy-making is fraught with contradiction, corruption, and colonialism. In Consent of the Networked, Rebecca MacKinnon has produced an incredibly well-researched account of these dilemmas, which is as deep as it is vast. She uses case studies from around the globe, illuminates essential human rights issues, and names key stakeholders and their positions.
The Internet: Tool of Revolution — or Repression?
The Internet and social networks are not only less responsible for the Arab Spring than old-fashioned activism, they’re vulnerable to abuse by the states against which Middle-Eastern protesters have been resisting.
Corporations and the Arab Net Crackdown
Springtime in the Arab world is looking bleaker now that despots in Libya, Bahrain, and Yemen and reactionary elements in Egypt have gained an upper hand against the pro-democracy protesters who have inspired the world. And the Internet, hailed sometimes in excess as a potent tool for these movements, has itself come under increasing fire from these and other autocratic states seeking to crush popular dissent.
The Age of Activism
In four magisterial works, the historian Eric Hobsbawm divided 200 years of modern history into the Age of Revolution (1789-1848), the Age of Capital (1848-1875), the Age of Empire (1875-1914), and the Age of Extremes (1914-1991). The period after 1992 so far remains nameless. Let me rashly and prematurely propose a name for our era: the Age of Activism. Here’s a preliminary sketch for a history of the age in which we are currently immersed, as well as a diagnosis of where this activism is heading.
The Limits of Internet Organizing
The Internet expedites expression for activists, but ultimately it mutes their impact.