The UK is ‘clearly a target for Russia’s disinformation campaigns,’ according to a new report. Protecting our democratic discourse from a hostile state is the role of the intelligence agencies. Integral to that process are the social media platforms, who are private actors. What role should platforms have in a national security context? LSE Visiting Fellow Monica Horten discusses the findings of the Russia report from the UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, released on 21 July, which exposes some of the issues. Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Category: Government and Policy (Page 1 of 34)
The decision by the UK government to stop publishing the international comparative death rate in its daily briefings from May 12 attracted widespread criticism. Many people saw this as an attempt to cover up just how badly the UK has handled the pandemic. Continue reading
The whole affair could hardly be more sleazy and murky, but the truth is now clear: the Government is giving tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to the corporate press, including the Daily Mail and the Sun. Continue reading
The first part of this post, “Life in the Time of CoronaVirus: Democracy, Data and Saving Lives“, was to be followed up by a second part: “The Rule of Law and Cultural Differences”. Continue reading
As an epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, China has launched an unprecedented effort to control the disease, locking down Wuhan in the province of Hubei — a megacity of 11 million people. Continue reading
How does the law protect the privacy of individuals infected with a novel, rapidly spreading virus, against intrusive media reportage? In some common law jurisdictions, including England and Wales, and New Zealand, tort law offers some protection, and media ought to bear this in mind. In others, including Australia, such protection against intrusive media activities per se has not yet been recognised by the courts. Continue reading
On 27 January, Suella Braverman, a former chair of the European Research Group, a junior minister at the former Department for Exiting the EU and an MP with a consistent record on voting against laws to promote human rights, wrote an article for the Conservative Home website in which she argued that: Continue reading
You don’t have to deny the growing political significance of social media to accept that the mainstream media continue to play a vital role in informing and priming public opinion during elections. Moreover, both worlds are deeply connected. Fewer people are buying newspapers but plenty are accessing the same content online. Continue reading
Is the UK’s 2019 election a single-issue campaign centered on Brexit? Some newspapers clearly think so, with the Daily Mail and the Sun having already branded it the “Brexmas Election”. These declarations reflect a strong desire to see the Conservatives triumph and for Boris Johnson to enact his core promise to “Get Brexit Done”. Continue reading
The Cambridge Analytica scandal of March 2018 changed the status of Facebook forever. The revelation that a political consultancy had illicitly gained access to the data of millions of Facebook users forced the company to change its approach to privacy, including its rules and algorithms. Continue reading
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