It’s difficult to say for certain what the latest tech trends for 2023 will be as the future is always subject to change, however some general tech trends that are likely to continue gaining momentum in the coming years include: if an autonomous weapon system is not able to distinguish between combatants and civilians, it…
In our assessment at Virtual Activism, in general, technology trends that are likely to continue gaining momentum in the coming years include the increased use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the growing prevalence of the Internet of Things, and the ongoing shift towards cloud computing. Additionally, virtual and augmented reality, 5G networks, and blockchain…
The impact of Pegasus on fundamental rights and democratic processes Pegasus is a sophisticated surveillance software developed by the Israeli cyber intelligence company NSO Group. The software is capable of gaining access to and monitoring a wide range of information on a target’s smartphone, including text messages, emails, location data, and even live microphone and…
The conference entitled Bearing-Witness: Videography in the Hands of the People, was from 5-7 October, 22 at the MIT’s Media Lab. It was organized by the Comparative Media Studies/Writing in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The conference builds on scholarship and public policy that emerged as a result of the…
UN Women just released its report on Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Gender Snapshot 2022 [pdf] on September 7th. The report presents the latest evidence on gender equality across all 17 goals, calling out the long road ahead to achieve gender equality. It emphasizes the interlinkages among the goals, the pivotal force gender…
Google employee Ariel Koren tweeted that she had resigned from Google citing hostility against workers who speak up about Google’s $1b AI/surveillance contract with Israel. She also wrote her story in Medium where she stated: “Due to retaliation, a hostile environment, and illegal actions by the company, I cannot continue to work at Google and…
In a new round of talks this week to formulate a UN Cybercrime Treaty, EFF is calling for strictly limiting the scope of the convention’s international cooperation provisions and safeguards to ensure that states respect human rights when responding to legal assistance requests. EFF is among a group of digital and human rights organizations participating…
Access Now has issued a joint statement with human rights and press freedom organizations in August urging the United States government to hold NSO Group accountable for providing Pegasus spyware to governments that have used the tool to secretly surveil journalists around the world. Signatories include: ORGANIZATIONSAccess NowARTICLE 19Amnesty InternationalCommittee to Protect JournalistsElectronic Frontier Foundation…
