Senior research associate @emiledirks.bsky.social spoke with Domino Theory about Xi Jinping’s view of national security in light of U.S. and Israeli cyber operations in Iran: dominotheory.com/from-stuxnet...
This continues to be just crazy in terms of matching priorities with capacities. How can Canada expect to implement an aggressive new diplomatic strategy in a rapidly changing world while gutting the staff tasked with actually implementing it?
www.ctvnews.ca/politics/art...
Today, I will be warning a 🇨🇦parliamentary committee about a coming "tsunami" of digital transnational repression as a result of the authoritarian turn in 🇺🇸, AI-enabled DTR, & PM Carney's soft pedal on human rights
Details: @theglobeandmail.com Robert Fife
www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/art...
Was thinking a little more about AI and pedagogy. People liken genAI to tools such as calculators, but we’d never say students don’t have to learn how to add because calculators exist. I worry a lot that the heavy use of genAI for research will be doing the equivalent: skipping skill acquisition.
My most succinct statement of why democracy is better than all other forms of government from a purely practical point of view (published January 3, 2025)
#China’s relentless policies of surveillance over #Tibet are suppressing the Tibetan people’s freedoms and culture. The world must come together to put a stop to their abuse of human rights.
Read more: savetibet.org/party-above-...
This is not to minimise what’s happening in the US, but it is important to know how much worse things can get—partly because otherwise, a lot of it might look like improvement, because you’re not able to see the bad anymore. Current comparisons between the US and PRC illustrate this rather neatly.
So $1.2B is being cut from regular VIA rail and $113M is being added to the HSR proposal that may not ever exist. That's punishing math
globalnews.ca/news/1173746...
Axworthy says for Canada, "our foreign policy is now an economic trade policy.” The just released Global Affairs department plan really showcases this
Every priority has been reframed around trade and business interests. The exception is consular support
international.canada.ca/en/global-af...
One thing that AI evangelists seem to assume, particularly legal AI evangelists assume, is that the thinking and analysis is quick, and the writing is just tedious busywork that slows us down.
But the writing IS the thinking and analysis. You work out the thinking and analysis by writing it down.
I met with AI data labelers in Kenya who are organizing their colleagues to fight the brutal working conditions and horrible pay given to the workers at the "bottom of the AI supply chain." They believe the NDAs they've signed are unenforceable so are speaking out:
www.404media.co/ai-is-africa...
"Transnational Repression in an Age of Upheaval: Global Policy Challenges for Canada"
In a policy brief for CIGI, @emiledirks.bsky.social & co-authors argue that the Canadian government must do more to protect diaspora members from #transnationalrepression.
www.cigionline.org/publications...
#China’s new “ethnic unity” law, to be passed this week, will accelerate the attempted forced assimilation of the country’s ethnic minorities into the dominant Han culture, according to academics and human rights groups. A piece by me:
CLICK LINK TO READ
www.bbc.com/news/article...
BOOK LAUNCH: Join the Citizen Lab’s @penney.bsky.social @rondeibert.bsky.social, and Kate Robertson as they discuss Penney’s new book, "Chilling Effects: Repression, Conformity, and Power in the Digital Age."
🕠 March 12, 5:30 pm
✅ RSVP: machformext.osgoode.yorku.ca/machform/vie...
Senior researcher @noura.bsky.social will share her insights at OSCE's meeting on legal and institutional strategies to address gender-based violence and violence against women in the public sphere.
More info: odihr.osce.org/event/662392
Ottawa has taken steps to address TNR. Yet, as we note, "the more that Ottawa avoids centring human rights in its international dealings and domestic policies, the more it signals to allies and adversaries alike that human rights are negotiable commodities in a new global order."
Shaila Baran, Emma Dickinson, Andre Fajardo & I have a new policy brief for CIGI on transnational repression, arguing that Ottawa's ability to counter TNR is challenged by its warming ties with autocracies, its uncritical embrace of AI, & US authoritarianism.
www.cigionline.org/publications...
MARCH 10: Get practical safety tips from the Citizen Lab's Rebekah Brown at @accessnow.org's Digital Security Helpline webinar on preventing spear-phishing attacks against civil society.
Register: www.accessnow.org/event/digita...
Our submission aims to confront an inconvenient truth in governments' efforts - particularly those of the US - to counter CCP transnational repression: You cannot be instilling fear in immigrants while simultaneously expecting them to report CCP harassment or publicly speak out against the regime.
Cert glad to have worked with colleagues on this important issue, at a time when migrants are targeted with impunity by origin and host states
Our latest submission to the Committee on Enforced Disappearance and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances is out now.
We highlight the role of digital technologies; spyware & location-tracking technologies in facilitating enforced disappearances of exiled dissidents
Take a look at our submission, as well as a separate submission on the role of digital tools in enforced disappearances by my Citizen Lab colleagues @sanstis.bsky.social, @noura.bsky.social, Tristan Surman, @mmichae1sen.bsky.social, & @rondeibert.bsky.social, here: citizenlab.ca/submissions-...
Three big factors are contributing to this pressing human rights problem: 1) hostile anti-migrant policies; 2) inadequate resourcing for the processing of migrant cases; & 3) migrant-related data sharing agreements among states. Importantly, these factors are not limited to any single country.
Migrants are uniquely vulnerable to TNR. However, host states’ policies on countering TNR, & their policies on restricting migration, are in tension. Efforts to address TNR are undermined by migration controls which curtail the rights of migrants, & place them at greater risk of detention & removal.
Sarah McKune, @nateschenkkan.bsky.social, an anonymous @citizenlab.ca researcher, @yaqiu.bsky.social & I have co-authored a UN submission on the enforced disappearance of migrants in the context of transnational repression:
citizenlab.ca/submissions-...
Senior research associate @emiledirks.bsky.social spoke with @icij.org about a new report he co-authored on #transnationalrepression in the EU.
Read it here: www.icij.org/investigatio...
Some good news! Guan Heng has just been granted asylum in the US, although DHS reserve the right to appeal the decision in the next 30 days.
Great to see @nateschenkkan.bsky.social presenting our report “Perpetrators & methods of transnational repression and possible counter strategies” (co-authored w/ @emiledirks.bsky.social @zecsaky.bsky.social & me) in the @afet.europarl.europa.eu
Full report: www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en...
PM Carney 🇨🇦gave a courageous speech with a lot of real-talk about the "rupture" in the international order.
But he left something out: the values that define us as a country & distinguish us from the fascist train wreck in the US 🇺🇸
My oped w Jason Stanley
www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...