Analysis

This is an excerpt from Edition 35 of MisDisMal-Information For the complete edition, go to: Of The Crafty World of War Rooms, D.O.O.M., Blurred Lines and Gloomy Races – MisDisMal-Information Newsletter (substack.com) DOOM and The Crafty World of War Rooms Over the last few weeks, it has been hard to miss coverage...

Introduction What is technology? The question appears so banal as to barely require answering. But the question bears tremendous significance for an understanding of human history and of the turbulent geopolitics of our world. In scope, it extends from the cuneiform scrawls of Bronze Age Sumerian scribes to the complex...

This column was first published in Deccan Herald. Views are personal. In last month’s column, I mentioned that the US and India were likely to update their intermediary liability rules sometime in the future. Intermediary liability laws decide if social media platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp can be held responsible...

The defining feature of 21st-century innovation has been the reduction of friction. The most successful companies of our times – Google, Facebook, Uber, and so on – follow what economists David S. Evans and Richard Schmalensee call the “Matchmaker” business model.  These companies make their money by making it easier...

We enter the third decade of this millennium amid rising doubts, risks and worries about technology, markets, nationalism, democracy and the world order. The unqualified enthusiasm for them that we saw in the past two decades has given way to concerns about what their right dosage is, and what, if...

In the season of Secret Santa, and last-minute Christmas shopping or new year’s gifts, the option of shopping with e-commerce is a godsend. Read the full article on Mumbai Mirror

This is an excerpt from Edition 26 of MisDisMal-Information:  For the complete edition, go to: Of Anti-vaxxing eloquent, doom profiting, political superspreaders and the ‘Right’ kind of social media Anti-vaxxing Eloquence Let me start with asking you a question. Do you believe there is an ‘antivaxxers movement’ in India? A year...

This article originally appeared in Deccan Herald. When the Kerala Governor signed a controversial Ordinance, now withdrawn, proposing amendments to the Kerala Police Act, there was understandably a significant amount of criticism and ire directed at the state government for a provision that warranted a three-year jail term for intentionally...

While the world speculates what a Biden administration is likely to look like, those in the technology space, including journalists and researchers, seem to agree that the severe scrutiny of ‘Big Tech’ companies, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook, is likely to continue. As veteran Silicon Valley journalist Casey Newton asserts...

This article was originally published in Live Mint. Views are Personal. In a recent interview with The Atlantic magazine, Barack Obama described social media as “the single biggest threat to our democracy”, arguing that these platforms had destroyed the common narrative necessary for democracy to function. He held tech companies...