Author Archives: DemDigest

Can democrats restore ‘Internet’s Lost Promise’?

     

Russia has used information warfare to influence election outcomes with the aim of weakening the values, defenses and self-belief of Western democracies, notes Sir Peter Westmacott, a former British Ambassador… Read more »

Tech giants expose global Iranian propaganda push

     

Hundreds of accounts allegedly originating in Iran and Russia were shuttered by Facebook and Twitter for “inauthentic behavior” and “coordinated manipulation,” the companies announced. Facebook deleted 652 pages, groups, and… Read more »

Soviet collapse ‘echoes’ in China’s Belt and Road Initiative

     

China’s increasingly image-conscious government has appointed a trusted member of the ruling Communist Party to head up its international propaganda operation, AP reports: Former top internet regulator Xu Lin will… Read more »

South Africa’s civil society halted kleptocratic state capture

     

South Africa’s fragile democracy was protected from kleptocratic state capture by the “galvanizing action” of a vibrant coalition of civil society groups, including organized labor, say the authors of a… Read more »

50 Years After Prague Spring, Lessons on Freedom

     

As his country commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Soviet invasion that crushed an effort to ease the totalitarian grip of Communism known as the Prague Spring, the Czech Republic’s… Read more »

How to counter ‘asymmetric risk for democratic societies’

     

Hackers linked to Russia’s government tried to target the websites of two U.S. think-tanks, suggesting they were broadening their attacks in the build-up to November elections, according to Microsoft, Reuters… Read more »

Russian hackers target sites exposing Kremlin kleptocracy

     

Hackers linked to Russia’s government tried to target the websites of two U.S. think-tanks, suggesting they were broadening their attacks in the build-up to November elections, according to Microsoft, Reuters… Read more »

Technology in service of ideology: exporting China’s ‘digital totalitarian state’

     

How do you effectively govern a country that’s home to one in five people on the planet, with an increasingly complex economy and society, if you don’t allow public debate,… Read more »

Illiberal alliances underpinning populist revolts’ ‘cultural revolution’

     

There are many similarities between American consultant-turned-ideologue Steve Bannon and Hungarian liberal-turned-ultraconservative Viktor Orban. Both have a missionary mind-set; both are interested in ideas; both are obsessed with what they… Read more »