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ADDED 08/11/2018

The Rise of Illiberal Artificial Intelligence

FROM 08/10/2018 | National Review

BY RYAN KHURANA

Chinese AI technology provides a blueprint for autocracies around the world. Chinese artificial-intelligence startup CloudWalk Technology signed a deal in March with the Zimbabwean government, providing the authoritarian regime an advanced facial-recognition system that it can use to identify, track, and monitor citizens. In exchange, CloudWalk gains access to the facial data of the demographically […]

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ADDED 07/21/2018

Authoritarians used to be scared of social media, now they rule it

FROM 07/21/2018 | Boing Boing

BY CORY DOCTOROW

A new report from the Institute For the Future on “state-sponsored trolling” documents the rise and rise of government-backed troll armies who terrorize journalists and opposition figures with seemingly endless waves of individuals who bombard their targets with vile vitriol, from racial slurs to rape threats. The report traces the origin of the phenomenon to a series […]

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ADDED 05/06/2018

Why the fearful, the vulnerable and the confused are attracted to ‘illiberal’ politics?

FROM 05/06/2018 | The Arab Weekly

BY Oussama Romdhani

Jihadist terrorism, in particular, can lower citizens’ expectations in Western democracies and make all kinds of concessions palatable. While hopeful voters headed to the ballot boxes in a number of Arab countries, politicians and pundits around the world, especially in the West, voiced concern that liberal democratic ideals are under assault. Alluding to the growing […]

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ADDED 05/05/2018

China’s social credit system fuels authoritarian regime

FROM 05/05/2018 | Asia Times

BY Sonika Gupta

China implemented its social credit system on a nationwide scale starting May 1. Social Credit, a harmless sounding phrase is the unholy marriage of big data with the proverbial ‘Big Brother’ under which, the state grades citizens as ‘trustworthy’ or not. Ostensibly the system is intended to address the trust deficit in the Chinese business […]

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