Showing 1-10 of 24 results
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Yes, Russia abused Facebook. But did it actually work?
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 20/12/2018
» Russia's propaganda operations during the 2016 US presidential election were broader than previously thought, according to two recently published studies. But they don't provide proof the influence campaign was as effective as the Kremlin may have hoped. Both reports, based on data provided by social networks, combine a distrust of the companies' disclosures and a naive trust in the metrics they tout.
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How to stick it to Europe: scrap Brexit
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 06/12/2018
» The top European court now is highly likely to rule that the UK can cancel Brexit unilaterally. For all the domestic political hurdles such a move would face, it's intriguing to ponder how Europe would take it if the UK did cancel Brexit, and what the consequences would be for the European Union.
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Elon Musk doesn't need more sleep, he needs better sleep
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 22/08/2018
» Last week, Arianna Huffington said Elon Musk's lack of sleep is impairing his performance. "The science is clear," she wrote after Tesla's chief executive officer told <i>The New York Times</i> that he works 120 hours a week, leaving him with little time to rest.
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Social media needs bigger clean-up
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 31/07/2018
» The plunge of Facebook and Twitter shares last week shows that both companies are hostages to investors' unrealistic perceptions of how quickly they should grow even as they purge bots and trolls. Moving to eliminate all fake and malicious accounts, as well as making new ones very hard to register, would be scary given these inflated expectations.
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Fighting tax dodgers can kill growth
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 26/07/2018
» It's easy to be outraged about multinational corporations' shifting of profits to tax havens, but much harder to figure out how to stop them from doing it without hurting the economy. Evidence exists that curbing tax avoidance opportunities makes these firms move actual jobs, not just accounting profits, overseas.
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Stock market is a lot like bitcoin now
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 08/02/2018
» Just as President Donald Trump had nothing to do with the stock market's rise, despite the almost 60 boastful tweets he has posted about it since being elected, he has nothing to do with the recent stock crash. Instead, praise the machines -- and blame them, too.
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Digital currencies can hurt the US
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 06/12/2017
» Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's announcement that the Latin American country will issue a cryptocurrency called the petro to overcome a "financial blockade" by the US probably mirrors the thinking of other maverick regimes. The possibility of sanctions-busting, and generally finding a way to work outside the Western-dominated global financial system, makes cryptocurrencies attractive to non-Western nations, and the more so to rogue regimes.
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Until it gets hacked, e-government sounds just great
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 23/11/2017
» A group of Czech security researchers earlier this year discovered a way to steal identities from electronic ID cards used in a number of countries, known in the cryptography industry as a ROCA vulnerability. So far, the vulnerability has caused problems in Estonia -- the country with perhaps the most comprehensive e-identification and e-government system in the world -- and in Spain. Former Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, a tireless promoter of his country's e-democracy, has said that other countries and institutions have the same problem, too; they're just not talking openly about it. He's very likely right.
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Coup against Mugabe is really nothing to celebrate
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 17/11/2017
» As leader of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe has survived longer than Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao in China. If it's coming to an end -- which seems likely given his apparent inability to emerge from house arrest after the military took charge -- it's worth reflecting on the mistakes he made to end such a remarkable run.
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Authoritarian cryptocurrencies are on the march
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 18/10/2017
» With Russia and China both embracing the idea of sovereign cryptocurrencies, it's time to ask a simple question: Why is a technology threatening to decentralise money so attractive to highly centralised, authoritarian regimes?
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