Why the U.S. Should Stop Lecturing the World About “Internet Values”

Clueless Optimism and Bull-Headed Arrogance Make the World Safe for Big Tech, Not Real People

The World Wide Web might have been invented by a Briton working for a European research organization, but let’s face it: The internet is American. The world’s richest tech firms are almost all American, including Apple, the single most valuable publicly traded company in the world. Much of the planet’s communications are sifted through the intelligence agencies of the United States and its proxies. The U.S. government uses American-born tech giants to access the data of millions of non-U.S. citizens, exploiting its home-field advantage over the internet’s architecture. And until …

Vulnerable Voting Machines Are Putting America at Risk

How Antiquated Equipment Could Imperil Democracy Itself

Although more than half the country may be unhappy with the results, America dodged a bullet on Election Day. That is, our voting machines generally held up. The tabulations they …

How Pokémon Go Can Save Lives in a Hurricane

Players Could Mobilize by Donating Blood, Filling Sandbags, and Evacuating Threatened Areas

Twenty years ago, when millions of people were displaced by a storm like Hurricane Matthew, we’d see convoys of temporary trailers being towed into stricken areas to shelter the newly …

Why Not to Trust “Buy Now” Buttons

Digital Media Ownership Is Partly Based on Lies

The multibillion-dollar digital media marketplace is built, in part, on a lie. Companies like Apple and Amazon entice their customers to “buy now” and “own it in HD.” But consumers …

Assault by (Loaded) Tweet?

Words Can Serve as Weapons Under the Right Circumstance

Social media has raised tricky questions that judges are beginning to try to answer. It’s been found possible to violate a restraining order by becoming an unwanted Instagram follower, or …

The Future of Libraries Has Three Different Paths

From a Single, Globally Accessible Collection to Nonexistent, Imagining the Institutions in 2100

So what will libraries be like in 2100?

That’s not so very far away. The next time you see a tiny baby, bear in mind that she or he has a …