Internet Democracy Project

By Kaagni Harekal, Meera Devi & Khabar Lahariya Bureau This essay is the culmination of a special collaboration between Khabar Lahariya and the Internet Democracy Project, that aimed to bring ground realities relating to technology use and related surveillance during COVID-19 to the forefront. It also sought to highlight the challenges surrounding current response mechanisms to the pandemic that are centred on technology. The essay is a commissioned piece produced by Khabar Lahariya. It can also be accessed on Khabar Lahariya’s website.   More

Internet based advertising has changed both the Internet and advertising. Efforts to understand the impacts of advertising business models rely on a distinction between ads that might be considered political and the rest. Such a classification empowers platforms to hide from scrutiny a whole lot of ads that are a basic part of an intrinsically political corpus of public discourse. Therefore, enhanced transparency for political ads, rather than shining a light, functions as a cover, obfuscating the impact of targeted and optimised ad infrastructures. In this essay, we use data collected at the Persuasion Lab (ad.watch) to problematise this central classification, and argue that the very nature of targeted ads is inherently political.   More

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology invited public comments to the draft Personal Data Protection Bill and accompanying report. The report claims that the proposed framework is a fourth way (others being the European Union model, the United States model and the Chinese model) that is tailored to suit India and other developing countries. The Internet Democracy Project made a submission, with general comments as well as some specific suggestions.    More

BY RANJANI K. This blog post by Ranjani K. was originally posted on her blog. It is a critical analysis of the use of the hash tag #MisogynyAlert which emerged as a possible strategy to deal with online abuse at a National Consultation on Women and Gendered Online Abuse held by the Internet Democracy Project and Point of View at New Delhi. For more on the genesis of the hash tag itself, please read this post by Kiran Manral. We have reproduced Ranjani’s post here with permission, as we believe it is important to acknowledge criticism, and build upon it.   More

BY ANAND PHILIP This blog post by Anand Philip was originally posted on his blog. It suggests questions that need to be addressed to move forward constructively with regard to the use of the hash tag #MisogynyAlert, which emerged as a possible strategy to deal with online abuse at a National Consultation on Women and Gendered Online Abuse held by the Internet Democracy Project and Point of View in New Delhi. We have reproduced Anand’s post here with permission.   More

BY KIRAN MANRAL This article by Kiran Manral, very slightly edited to fit our website, first appeared on Tehelka blog. Kiran Manral is an author, blogger and media consultant. She is also the founder of India Helps, a volunteer network which works with disaster victims, and is part of the core team that has worked on Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month April ²⁰¹¹⁄₁₂ and Violence Against Women Awareness Month October ²⁰¹¹⁄₁₂. Her debut novel, The Reluctant Detective, was published by Westland in 2012.   More

BY VIDYUT — AAM JANATA In this Make Blog post, Vidyut reflects on the growing censorship in the world and its negative effect on the quality of democracies everywhere. In this light, she also analyses the devastatingly chilling effect the IT Rules can have in India in particular. And asks you to act. Now. Read the original post, also published today, here.   More

BY AMRUTA MEHTA In an earlier post, Amruta Mehta wondered whether censorship is the new sterilisation. Since then, she has taken her quest to find out whether censorship is indeed the latest global fad a step further by inquiring about this among friends from around the world. Today, written for Make Blog: a perspective from the Netherlands. Read the original post here.   More

BY AMRUTA MEHTA In an earlier post, Amruta Mehta wondered whether censorship is the new sterilisation. Since then, she has taken her quest to find out whether censorship is indeed the latest global fad a step further by inquiring about this among friends from around the world. Today, written for Make Blog: a perspective from Canada. Read the original post, published on 23 March 2012, here.   More

BY AMRUTA MEHTA In an earlier post, Amruta Mehta wondered whether censorship is the new sterilisation. Since then, she has taken her quest to find out whether censorship is indeed the latest global fad a step further by inquiring about this among friends from around the world. Today, written for Make Blog: a perspective from Mexico. Read the original post, published on 15 March 2012, here.   More