The 1st day of April is also known as April Fools’ Day. People in the West have become accustomed to play jokes and pranks on each other, trying to exploit others’ gullibility for making them take most unbelievable things for real. Arguably one of the biggest April-pranks of all times, is the Christian fixation of […]

The economics of the internet favor natural monopolies, and some platforms now dominate their markets. They enjoy such high profits that they can quickly capture new markets by buying out competitors or developing a rival service; local startups, including those in developing countries, are left with tiny niche markets. – World Development Report 2016: Digital […]

In India Facebook’s plan for world domination (read our report) is met by strong opposition – rallying under this banner: Whose Internet is it anyway?

In the course of my investigations against Facebook and WhatsApp for the article “Digital Tyranny“, I wanted to install WhatsApp on my laptop to gain some hands-on experience. Alas the Download WhatsApp-page informs, that there is a limitation: “WhatsApp Messenger is a cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows you to exchange messages without having to […]

Casting Facebook’s data efficiency plan as “the savior of the developing world” is “hard to swallow.” – David Talbot, MIT Technology Review The father of this nation, the late President Nyerere, studied history and political economy for his Master of Arts at the University of Edinburgh. Most probably he would have commented on Facebook Inc.’s […]

“The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation.” – William McKinley, 25th President of the USA Assimilation describes the process whereby foreign peoples are absorbed into a dominant culture, society or economy. The added attribute benevolent (Latin: “well-wished”) characterises such assimilation as an act of charity (Latin: “unconditional love for others”) or […]

 “The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.” – Maximilien de Robespierre (1758 – 1794) The origins of modern Western Civilisation date back 2400 years to ancient Greece, where philosophers like Plato and Aristotle developed concepts of government. They formulated our ideas about “democracy” (rule by […]

“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.” […]

“… we reserve the right to act unilaterally, as we have done relentlessly since I took office […] while making sure that other nations play by the rules …” – Barack Hussein Obama II, 44th US-President, January 20, 2015 The US-magazine “Foreign Policy”, which claims to be “reporting [from] inside the foreign policy machine”, on […]

On Thursday 07/11/13 Brazil and Germany formally introduced this resolution to the U.N. General Assembly urging all countries to extend internationally guaranteed rights to privacy to the Internet and other electronic communications. “Today, there seem to be hardly any technical limitations for accessing, storing or combining personal data. But should everything that is technical feasible […]