Kazakhstan's government is using social media to tame rebellion

Mar 21, 2017 09:25 am UTC| Insights & Views Politics

Until the mid-2000s, one would rarely associated the word high-tech with the country of Kazakhstan. Internet penetration hovered at 3% in 2005, and Kazakh authorities generally neglected the internet and social...

“Sesame Street” To Introduce Its First Autistic Muppet; Is The PBS Defunding Move Due To The Show’s Parody Of Donald Trump For Years?

Mar 21, 2017 08:37 am UTC| Entertainment Politics

Early this week, Sesame Street officially debuted its first Muppet with autism. Julia, a red-haired shy Muppet, was first introduced last year in digital form for Sesame Workshops Sesame Street and Autism: See Amazing in...

US under Trump Series

Can Silicon Valley's autocrats save democracy?

Mar 20, 2017 01:54 am UTC| Insights & Views Politics

In late February, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg published an essay that laid out the social networks vision for the coming years. The 5,700-word document, immediately dubbed a manifesto, was his most...

Why should we obey the law?

Mar 20, 2017 01:34 am UTC| Insights & Views Law Politics

The claim by Sally McManus, the new head of the ACTU, that when the law is unjust, I dont think there is a problem in breaking it, returns us to a deep question in political philosophy: Why should I obey the law and the...

George Osborne at the Evening Standard: the latest through a long-revolving door

Mar 18, 2017 06:36 am UTC| Insights & Views Politics

In announcing the former chancellor, George Osborne, as its new editor, the London Evening Standard continues a strong tradition of political elites having easy access to employment within the media elite. They sometimes...

George Osborne, The Evening Standard and the Conservative media establishment

Mar 18, 2017 06:34 am UTC| Insights & Views Politics

The appointment of George Osborne, a Conservative MP and former chancellor of the exchequer, as editor of the Evening Standard was, to put it mildly, a surprise to many. But Osbornes appointment only makes more explicit...

A clarion call for a new kind of popular politics

Mar 17, 2017 15:08 pm UTC| Insights & Views Politics

If the rising sense of alienation from the political process is to be reversed in the long term, it will require more than a quick dose of populist rhetoric or tinkering with the way politics is organised. The British...