• OPINION

  Google breakup would fit the EU's logic

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 24/04/2018

  » On Thursday, the European Parliament backed the idea of breaking up Google. It doesn't have the power to do it, but the legislators' decision is a notable part of a backlash against the remedial action Google took after the European Commission fined it US$2.95 billion for abusing its dominant position in shopping search. That backlash could lead to dire consequences for the search giant.

• OPINION

  Cambridge Analytica's business simply isn't data

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 23/03/2018

  » As the Cambridge Analytica scandal unfolds, the Western world is meeting a little-known part of its political industry, the one that has operated in developing nations since at least the 1990s. CA's methods as revealed by Britain's Channel 4 News, whose reporter posed as a potential Sri Lankan client, may be a bit extreme -- but for the most part, the consultancy has been one of many firms that have brought Western-style electioneering to lawless environments in which it has been blatantly abused.

• OPINION

  The Cambridge Analytica red herring

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 21/03/2018

  » Facebook is being hammered for allowing the data firm Cambridge Analytica to acquire 50 million user profiles in the US, which it may or may not have used to help the Trump campaign. But the outrage misses the target: There's nothing Cambridge Analytica could have done that Facebook itself doesn't offer political clients.

• OPINION

  Secretive Russian billionaire vents to US conservatives

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 13/03/2018

  » It's not every day that a Russian billionaire submits a op-ed piece to the Daily Caller, the conservative US website. When the billionaire in question is as media-shy as Oleg Deripaska, something extraordinary is going on. As the unfortunate recipient of an oversized role in the "Trump-Russia" scandal, he has had enough and is not quite sure how to defend himself.

• OPINION

  MeToo camp hits a wall in Russia

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 09/03/2018

  » The #MeToo movement has finally reached Russia. Unfortunately, it's sad and astonishing for the women involved and for anyone who supports them. Russia's current atmosphere is conducive to all sorts of power abuses, and the scandal in its parliament proves that nothing's about to change.

• OPINION

  US-EU trade imbalance does need fix

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 08/03/2018

  » In response to US President Donald Trump's threatened tariffs on European imports such as steel, aluminium and cars, the European Union (EU) is threatening to slap a 25% duty on jeans, cosmetics, bourbon and Harley Davidson motorcycles. This is an intentionally cartoonish list of US staples designed to portray Mr Trump's attempt at a trade war as a farce.

• OPINION

  Twitter struggling to engineer healthy conversation

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 05/03/2018

  » Facebook's self-regulatory contortions in the wake of fake news and trolling scandals have gone on, with little visible effect, for months. Now Twitter founder and Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey has announced his company is going to try a different tack -- but Mr Dorsey's approach is arguably even more far-fetched than his Facebook peer Mark Zuckerberg's: It's an attempt to view Twitter's social mess as an engineering problem.

• OPINION

  Journalist murders are a major problem in the EU

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 01/03/2018

  » The time has come to ask whether membership in the European Union (EU) is still a quality assurance seal for democracy and the rule of law among member states. The bloc has clearly failed to enforce its stated values on its periphery. Any additional expansion can only dilute them further.

• OPINION

  Putin struggles to keep wars separate

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 16/02/2018

  » Late on Feb 7 and early on Feb 8, US forces in Syria likely killed the greatest number of Russians since the end of the Cold War -- more than 200 soldiers. There will, however, be no international repercussions, nor will any of the Russians get posthumous medals like Roman Filipov, the fighter pilot who was shot down over Syria earlier this year and resisted capture until he was forced to blow himself up with a hand grenade.

• OPINION

  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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