In The News

The Daily Beast: Inside Twitter’s Bot Purge

Taylor Lorenz February 22, 2018
In a crackdown on mass automatic posts, Twitter has deleted thousands of accounts. “The pulldown took place quite literally in the middle of the night, without warning or explanation from the company,” explains Taylor Lorenz for the Daily Beast. “Leading right-wing trolls and conspiracy theorists, many of whom woke up this morning to discover that their follower numbers had plunged by the...

Brookings: Globalization, Technology, Inequality

Zia Qureshi February 22, 2018
People even in the world’s most advanced and wealthiest economies are unhappy and politically fractured – this despite a full recovery from the 2008 financial crisis and growing economies. “The increasingly unequal sharing of the economic pie lies at the heart of the rising social discontent,” explains Zia Qureshi for Brookings. “Income and wealth inequalities have risen practically in all major...

The Japan Times: Abe Calls for Foreign Employment Review to Bring in Overseas Skilled Workers

Reiji Yoshida February 21, 2018
Japan, with a low fertility rate, has an aging population and must either rely on foreign workers or do without some services. The number of registered foreign workers has increased from less than 500,000 in 2008 to to 1.28 million in 2017, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government makes plans for to allow more immigration. Cautious about abrupt cultural changes, he called for firm limits...

Reuters: Final Version of Trans-Pacific Trade Deal

Charlotte Greenfield and Colin Packham February 21, 2018
Economies in the Asia Pacific region are among the fastest growing in the world. The United States walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal for reducing tariffs, but the other 11 countries – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam – persevered and finalized the terms of what is now called the Comprehensive and...

Lawfare: Mueller’s Indictment of Russian Hackers Highlights Stakes of Microsoft Case

Andrew Keane Woods February 20, 2018
Since the 9/11 attacks on New York City and Washington, DC, in 2001, the United States developed sophisticated surveillance techniques. Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians and three Russian organizations for interfering in the 2016 presidential elections, describing elaborate efforts to avoid detection including virtual private networks and US travel to set up servers and accounts...

The New York Times: Banks Could Control Gun Sales if Washington Won’t

Andrew Ross Sorkin February 20, 2018
Jurisdictions that restrict gun sales, like Australia or Connecticut, soon experience fewer mass shootings, suicides and other shooting deaths. The United States has the highest rate of gun violence among developed nations, yet the National Rifle Association and Congress resist background checks and other controls. In the wake of a Florida school shooting that left 17 dead, Andrew Ross Sorkin of...

CNN: US Tariffs on Steel Would Hit China and Entire Global Trading System

Julia Horowitz February 19, 2018
The Trump administration, after complaining about China’s low prices for steel, has a deadline of April 11 for deciding on new steel tariffs. “However, China is not the top country from which the United States imports steel,” explains Julia Horowitz for CNN. “The United States imports most of its steel – 16% – from Canada. It imports 13% from Brazil, 10% from South Korea, 9% from Mexico and 9%...