In The News

China Squeezes PC Makers

Loretta Chao June 8, 2009
China will require all new personal computers to have software that blocks internet content by July 1. While the software need not be pre-installed – a separate disc is acceptable – this regulation creates substantial logistical and civil liberty hurdles. This exclusive Wall Street Journal story reports that personal computer manufacturers are scrambling to comply on such short notice as well as...

Irish Student Hoaxes World's Media with Fake Quote

Shawn Pogatchnik May 12, 2009
Making up fake quotes may once have been considered a school boy prank. Today, when those quotes are posted on the world’s foremost online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, and then are incorrectly attributed by numerous online news services, it becomes an experiment in how globalization monitors itself. A Dublin university student posted a fake quote of composer and conductor Maurice Jarre on Wikipedia...

Losing $63 Billion in Diverted U.S. Goods Is Sleuth Obsession

Carol Wolf April 9, 2009
Old-fashioned arbitrage on an international level has a new name: “product diversion.” It means the same thing though: buying low in one market and selling higher in another. The difference is that many multinational corporations (MNC) are now employing investigators and litigators to identify and crack down on the practice. Some MNCs have gone so far as to end business relationships with...

NGO 2.0: Using the Web to Reunite Refugees

Charles Hawley March 24, 2009
Anyone can sign up for Facebook; establish unique identities based on name, hometowns and schools; and instantly reconnect with old flames and friends. Danish brothers Christopher and David Mikkelsen realized such a social-networking tool would also be ideal for refugees seeking separated family members after the disruptions of war, famine or other catastrophes, and so they developed a one-stop...

These Days, No Reporting Behind a Nation’s Back

Anand Giridharadas March 18, 2009
People with problems are sometimes more willing to confide in strangers than close friends or neighbors. But foreign news reports are no longer shielded by distance, explains Anand Giridharadas in the New York Times. “In the Internet age, we cover each place for the benefit of all places, and the reported-on are among the most avid consumers of what we report,” he explains. The globally astute...

Firewalls to Freedom

Rebecca MacKinnon March 9, 2009
To block popular dissent over policies, governments no longer simply rely on censorship, particularly the imperfect filters devised for the internet. Instead governments of all stripes master the art of spin – emphasizing certain topics and casting their own frame for any issue. Citizens who support government positions can tout policies and quickly blast doubters, as evident prior to the 2003 US...

Gaza Conflict Plays Out Online Through Social Media

Corey Flintoff January 15, 2009
Israel has stopped journalists from entering the war zone, but photos and reports continue to flow. As war rages in the Gaza Strip, cross-border social networking continues on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube. “Online media are conglomerating their information, and governments are getting into the act,” reports Corey Flintoff for National Public Radio. The public has changed the way it...