Technology
Interesting times for TikTok
From Delhi to Washington to Canberra, the future of the digital economy may be heavily influenced by how one question is answered:
What to do about TikTok?
The popular short…
Is Huawei in the UK a canary in the coalmine?
It is not a coincidence that Britain’s turnaround on using Huawei for its 5G infrastructure happened at the height of the pandemic. Covid-19 brutally brought back the realisation…
Social credit: The next China risk for Australian business
As China recovers from the Covid-19 crisis, the apparatus of the state is about to be devoted to a new form of social control. By the end of 2020, China plans to introduce its…
The semiconductor industry is where politics gets real for Taiwan
One might wonder how something as small as five nanometres – about the width of two strands of DNA – could be of consequence to the complex political relationships between the US,…
The cost of conspiracy in muddling public health messages
A spike in coronavirus cases across Melbourne has seen local hotspot suburbs largely locked down and some 3000 people in public housing towers prevented from leaving home at all…
India’s TikTok stars collateral damage in Chinese app ban
Indians have been very enthusiastic users of all forms of social media, but TikTok has found them to be an especially eager audience.
With 660 million downloads of…
K-pop “stans” unleashed: Hijacking hashtags for social action
As protestors in America mourned the death of George Floyd, the hastag #BlackLivesMatter was trending on social media platforms with solidarity posts worldwide as a protest…
Debt threatens Digicel’s Pacific dominance
When it comes to mobile networks in the Pacific Islands region, Digicel is dominant. More than 2.6 million subscribers mean its SIM cards power more…
Morrison’s messages to the “sophisticated state-based cyber actor”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s announcement today that Australia was being targeted by a “sophisticated state-based cyber actor” was curiously measured. On the one hand, the …
Belt and Road means big data and facial recognition, too
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which aims to grow the Chinese economy through facilitating extensive trade across Eurasia and Africa, is now so large it is shaping how…