Dear readers, welcome the latest edition of the Digital Rights Archive Newsletter. In this edition we delve into a plethora of thought-provoking contributions that will dissect the complex and multifaceted intersections of technology, economy, society and ecology. An exploration by Gregor Craigie…

Writing in 1958, the great Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith coined the phrase “the conventional wisdom” to describe “the ideas which are esteemed at any time for their acceptability.” The phrase immediately leapt to mind upon seeing Philipp Staab, Marc Pirogan and Dominik Pietron’s article…

One of the reasons I enjoy writing this newsletter is that it gives me the chance to challenge my preconceived notions when it comes to tech policy. This month’s selection of articles (selected not by me, I should add, but by The Syllabus) is no different. Take Bill-C18 (please). I have my own…

This newsletter is nearing its first anniversary, a year marked by extensive discussion on digital rights - in Europe, through the Artificial Intelligence Act, and in Canada through the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act. It has been a year of 'trialogues' and debates, striving to regulate a…

If you have spent some time working with AI you may have had an experience like Peter J. Cobb, who wondered if ChatGPT and Midjourney could assist archaeologists, only to find that it seems to have potentially limited use cases for their own purposes. So, then how are people calling for this to…

Sometimes it seems like most of what comprises internet and digital policy today involves a constant reconsideration of the meaning of words. A couple of decades ago, “open,” as in “open access” or “open source,” was largely seen as a good thing. It implied sharing, greater access to information.…

Mid-August, the last gasp of summer before things get serious again in September. We’re all just trying to relax, maybe with a light beach read? Carl Hiaasen’s a trusty standby, and I can personally vouch for John Scalzi’s latest, the delightful The Kaiju Preservation Society. Maybe not the best…

On its face, the title of Merten Reglitz’s article, “The socio-economic argument for the human right to internet access,” harkens back to a simpler time, in the 1990s and early 2000s, when the biggest digital problem was that governments weren’t getting people on the internet quickly enough. Those…

Much of the research currently being conducted into digital technology, online platforms, large language models, algorithms, and the like is devoted to documenting how these digital wonders are transforming our relationships with the things we take for granted. Daniel Cohen, in his consideration of…

It’s the enduring irony of our current moment: we live in an increasingly datafied society, and yet the exact nature of the foundational element of this society – data – remains shrouded in mystery for many people. In his (deservedly) award-winning book, Innovation in Real Places: Strategies for…

One of the most fascinating things about the current explosion of interest in artificial intelligence – the term that’s been adopted to describe any number of automated and generative digital processes, despite long-standing warnings that it’s as much a marketing term as anything else – is the…

Like most people in and around tech, I’ve got ChatGPT on the brain, trying to figure out its implications for everything from search to education, to the fate of science itself. ChatGPT may have caught the public surprise, but this month’s newsletter reminds us that people have been thinking about…

Pharmakon. It’s not exactly a commonly used word in most circles. I’d never come across it before reading Alessandro Sbordin’s wide-ranging interview with Dutch media theorist Geert Lovink that, among other things, invites readers to think about what the next phase of the internet might look like.…

If the 2018 Facebook-Cambridge Analytica revelations led to a popular “techlash,” the past 12 months can be seen as the year of tech’s reckoning. Meta/Facebook’s collapse in value was a humbling comedown for a company that was previously seen as an unstoppable global force; the cryptocurrency…