This paper uses qualitative content analysis to determine what type of socio-legal order the Silk Road is, to see whether platforms like the Silk Road indeed have the revolutionary potential proclaimed by some crypto communities.
Filtered results
In the wake of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, it is timely to review the state of the debate about the impact of data-driven elections and to identify key questions that require academic research and regulatory response. The papers in this collection, by some of the world’s most prominent elections researchers, offer that assessment.
This paper analyses the spread of misinformation in the context of 2018 Brazilian elections. We give a general overview of the Brazilian political context, its media ecosystem and the weaponisation of the country’s most popular messaging app, WhatsApp, as a political persuasion tool. The current architecture of the platform does not allow, once
Will the same cross-device technologies that track our journeys through the commercial marketplace now follow us into the polling booth?
This paper shows how platforms are transient in the policies, procedures, and affordances and details the implications for politics.
Zero rating has emerged as one of the most contentious communications policy debates of the last decade. The offer of ‘free’ access to select applications compromises network neutrality, at the same time as it can present advantages to users with limited economic resources. How can we attempt to reconcile these conflicting dimensions of zero
This paper analyses social media blocking in Brazil, as a consequence of "regulatory disruption".
Internet control
1
Securitising Putin IV: the rationale behind Russia’s new “digital laws”
In recent years, a myriad of “defensive measures” were implemented by Russia to tighten state control over the internet. Recent laws passed by the State Duma are likely to bring Russia's internet under firm government control.
Does competiton law apply to search engines and social networks? The paper maintains that existing competition concepts are flexible enough to be adequately applied to these internet services.
Data protection
The new Facebook data policy: like or dislike?
You are unclear about what Facebook will be doing with your data in the new year? Read Anne Helmond's quick analysis of Facebook's new terms and policies in effect 1 January 2015.
