Ellery Roberts Biddle

Authoritarian Tech is a weekly newsletter tracking how people in power are abusing technology and what it means for the rest of us. Also in this edition: Musk taunts Wikipedia, Sri Lanka flirts with a new censorship tool, and Greek politicians continue to grapple with their spyware problem.

Authoritarian Tech is a weekly newsletter tracking how people in power are abusing technology and what it means for the rest of us. Also in this edition: Hikvision offers ethnic minority “alerts” in Chinese university dining halls, and surveillance hits an all-time high in the West Bank.

Authoritarian Tech is a weekly newsletter tracking how people in power are abusing technology and what it means for the rest of us. Also in this edition: Palestinians face detention over “incitement” on social media, and Netanyahu welcomes Elon Musk despite his antisemitic posts on X.

Authoritarian Tech is a weekly newsletter tracking how people in power are abusing technology and what it means for the rest of us. Also in this edition: Israel’s AI war, Palantir’s big British data grab, and Serbia’s error-prone automated welfare system.

Year in review: Digitization and the apparatus of control

Authoritarian Tech is a weekly newsletter tracking how people in power are abusing technology and what it means for the rest of us. In this edition: A cyber army helps secure incumbent victory in Bangladesh, Beijing-based disinfo operations ramp up ahead of Taiwan’s election, and election interference cases highlight the role of social media companies in Donald Trump’s rise.

Authoritarian Tech is a weekly newsletter tracking how people in power are abusing technology and what it means for the rest of us. Also in this edition: The internet’s still out in Gaza, OpenAI might want a military contract, and Wikimedia Ru closes up shop.

Authoritarian Tech is a weekly newsletter tracking how people in power are abusing technology and what it means for the rest of us. Also in this edition: OpenAI’s election flub, Sri Lanka’s online safety bill, and Amazon’s big fine in France.

Authoritarian Tech is a weekly newsletter tracking how people in power are abusing technology and what it means for the rest of us. Also in this edition: Network shutdowns also hit Sudan and Senegal, and Meta finally gives Iran’s Ayatollah the heave-ho.

Social media companies have made many mistakes over the past 15 years. What if they're repeated in the so-called AI revolution?