Oppenheimer vs Hinton? - Digital Threat Digest
Hacks and Libel - Digital Threat Digest
On 26 September, Semafor published a lengthy article written by Jay Solomon claiming that a series of Iranian-American analysts and advisors to the Biden administration had been compromised as part of a long-running Iranian influence operation.
How to manage the digital frontier? - Digital Threat Digest
These days, there seems to be a variety of digital technologies on the horizon that are poised to disrupt the way we live our everyday lives.
The Conspiratorial Delusion - Digital Threat Digest
On Saturday night, Channel 4’s Dispatches aired an investigation into Russell Brand, presenting allegations of sexual and emotional abuse towards multiple women between 2006 and 2013.
Decoding the dialect: The AI translational paradox - Digital Threat Digest
The other day, I came across this article from the Guardian on the use of AI translation in asylum applications.
Covid-19, conspiracies and the CIA - Digital Threat Digest
In a manner horrifyingly reminiscent of March 2020, my week started with discourse on Covid-19, specifically of new variants.
Craving legitimate information - Digital Threat Digest
I’ve noticed I’ve been consuming increasing amounts of breaking news content from accounts named ‘Pop Crave’ and ‘Pop Base’.
Stemming the tide - Digital Threat Digest
The potential of AI-generated disinformation and influence operations is picking up fast. An anonymous software engineer called ‘Neapaw’ recently showcased ‘CounterCloud’, a Large Language Model (LLM) project designed to automate a pro-US, anti-Russia, pro-Biden, anti-Trump influence operation in its entirety.
Gotcha - Digital Threat Digest
Media, politics, debate, and general human interaction increasingly revolve around ‘gotcha’ moments. The desperate and infinite pursuit of being able to catch out the person who disagreed with you online and parade them in front of the digital crowd as a stupid dumb idiot.
Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3... - Digital Threat Digest
When it comes to research in the digital threat space, it's often the reports focusing on Western targets that are afforded the limelight (we are a Western country after all): Russian influence in the US 2016 election, Chinese bot farms fanning the political flames of the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, Iran's 'PressTV' operation in the UK.
Digital armies - Digital Threat Digest
With wars no longer just fought on the ground but online, traditional peacemaking and mediation tactics have had to shift.
The online narco state - Digital Threat Digest
As a dedicated Latin Americanist, I was naturally following Ecuador’s snap presidential election on Sunday – triggered two years ahead of schedule by President Guillermo Lasso to avoid impeachment proceedings.
AI and the prisoner’s dilemma of regulation - Digital Threat Digest
When it comes to regulating something at an international level, navigating the geopolitical interests of different states is a difficult task.
Azaadi Mahotsav: Digital hate, polarisation and mobilisation in India - Digital Threat Digest
Today is India's 77th Independence Day. Growing up, the day always felt joyful – characterised by kite flying, flag hoisting and the celebration of our collective azaadi (freedom) as a people.
Behind the curtain - Digital Threat Digest
On 8 August, Ohio voters rejected a Republican-backed referendum ballot known as Issue 1. Had it passed it would have changed the Ohio State Constitution to require 60% approval for any constitutional amendment, as opposed to a simple majority.
The importance of being anonymous - Digital Threat Digest
Recently, I’ve been reading about Worldcoin, an initiative co-founded by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman.
The democratisation of information - Digital Threat Digest
Capitalism has destroyed the internet, and the decentralisation of debate was a mistake. I’ve subscribed to my fair share of platforms and apps over the last 15 years, but the only two I’ve ever paid money for were OSRS and PokémonGo.
The Russian disinformation campaign against former French colonies - Digital Threat Digest
Almost a year and a half after it started, the war still rages on between Russia and Ukraine. Russia continues to spread disinformation about its need to eradicate Nazism in Ukraine, target NATO and advocate for an ‘anti-Western’ ideology.
Deals and disasters - Digital Threat Digest
In March, we wrote a digest on the uptick of xenophobic rhetoric centred on the perceived increase of sub-Saharan migration in Tunisia and the ‘secret’ project to change Tunisia’s demographic that was first inspired by the once relatively unknown Tunisian National Party and amplified by no other than President Kais Saied himself.
Oppenheimer vs Hinton? - Digital Threat Digest
I’m sure that I don’t need to provide context for this digest, but yesterday I found out that one of my colleagues had no idea what the Barbie movie was, so just in case you missed it as well - two of the biggest films of the year, Oppenheimer (a biopic about Robert Oppenheimer, the creation and use of the atomic bomb) and Barbie (a hard-hitting piece of cinematic mastery about the complex lives of plastic dolls) were released last Friday.
Barbie and the memetic politics of the spectacle - Digital Threat Digest
A few days ago, the official TikTok account of the Presidency of Colombia posted a video in celebration of the 20 July Independence Day.
AI Agents: Destroyers of the world? Or more of the same? - Digital Threat Digest
After the public release of ChatGPT, it has been hard to avoid the explosion of promises around the potential uses of AI.
Digital India - Digital Threat Digest
Over the past week, I’ve been focused on the concept of digital regulation – largely inspired by the Indian government's new Digital India Bill.
Hanging by a Thread(s) - Digital Threat Digest
Last week Meta debuted their new platform Threads, designed to compete with Twitter. Since its launch, over 100 million users have signed up making it the fastest growing app – even overtaking ChatGPT.
Riot Games - Digital Threat Digest
Today world events play out twice; first as real-world tragedies and then as online farces. These processes occur at the same time, with one reinforcing the other.
Butlerian Jihad - Digital Threat Digest
The thing that interests me the most about the Dune universe is its depiction of a world which has banned, destroyed, and evolved beyond technology that can think for humans.
Press X to doubt - Digital Threat Digest
Last week, my colleague wrote a piece about the illusion of choice – how everything that hits our Netflix and Amazon Prime follows the same basic structure, even if the main characters and settings change.
The veil of ignorance and proxy wars - Digital Threat Digest
The last time I wrote about the conflict in Sudan it had been twelve days since the fighting had begun, today it is just over two months since it started – 73 days to be exact.
The illusion of choice - Digital Threat Digest
As much of the Netflix account-owning world, I spent the last week watching the new series of Black Mirror.
AI threats follow the rules, too - Digital Threat Digest
The hyperfocus on AI continues to generate an incredible number of predictions around its future uses, for good and for ill.
High Threat-worth Individuals - Digital Threat Digest
The gig seems to be up for Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. Both men have been politically sidelined for a while now, but with Johnson about to found guilty of lying to the Commons and Trump facing potential jail time for mishandling classified documents, it is looking unlikely that the Teflon Bros.
Hellscape - Digital Threat Digest
It was been difficult to miss media coverage on last Wednesday’s apocalyptic scenes in New York. The whole city was engulfed in a dystopian, eerie orange smog because of wildfires in Canada.
The Facts and the Furious - Digital Threat Digest
Indian social media is currently abuzz with talk around the film ‘The Kerala Story’, which was released last month.
Isolated reality - Digital Threat Digest
Much as Apple managed to do some serious damage to the phone market post-2007, so the AR/VR/XR wars have begun as of June 2023.
Unique signals - Digital Threat Digest
Like the rest of the UK, I spent the bank holiday Monday outside, having a barbecue, stubbornly refusing to put on sunscreen.
US2024: The Culture War - Digital Threat Digest
Over the past few weeks, I’ve become more and more convinced that the US presidential election next year is going to come down to a battle of cultures, rather than politics.