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2024: The year of punching through the noise
For the autocrats, 2023 was a pretty good year. For the rest of us, not so much. New wars emerged, old ones persisted, and a global rift over reality and truth deepened further. Divisions over how to interpret the world around us have, of course, existed since time immemorial, but we often forget that the yawning gulf between societies today is driven by algorithms engineered in my unlikely new home in Silicon Valley.
Year in review: Coda’s best stories of 2023
At the start of 2023, Germany’s far right descended on Dresden for its annual “March of Mourning.” Their show of force was a fist meant to punch a hole in Germany’s traditionally subdued “silent commemoration” of the anniversary of the firebombing of the city by the Allied forces in February 1945. “It’s part of an attempt to create an idea of Germans being not perpetrators but victims,” Stephan Petzold, a lecturer in German history at Leeds University, explained to Alexander Wells, who wrote a piece on the subject for us.
Year in review: On the front lines and fault lines of the climate crisis
As the COP 28 climate summit entered its final negotiations, Graham Stuart, the U.K.’s minister of state for energy security and net zero, flew the 3,400 miles back to London from Dubai for a critical vote in parliament on immigration. Then, he turned around and flew back to the United Arab Emirates.
Year in review: Digitization and the apparatus of control
About a year ago, it became popular for Western media commentators to sound the death knell for the social web. Elon Musk “sunk in” as the new owner of Twitter, and the mainstream social media platform that had come closest to approximating a digital public square began its spectacular decline.
Year in review: From Nairobi to Medellín, our best photography of 2023
1. Silicon Savanna: The workers taking on Africa's digital sweatshops. Nairobi-based photographer Natalia Jidovanu shadowed social media content moderators who are fighting back against Big Tech companies like Meta Kenyan courts. Rulings in these cases could jeopardize the outsourcing model upon which tech giants have built their global empire. 2....
On British soil, foreign autocrats target their critics with impunity
Death threats are pretty routine for British Sikh journalist Jasveer Singh. When he posts stories on social media about his community, they’re often met with abuse. He’s been called a terrorist, as have the subjects of his stories. His accounts have been reported en masse for allegedly posting offensive comments, prompting the platforms to suspend them. “It does descend into direct threats,” Singh said. “‘We’re coming for you next… We’re going to shut you up.’ That’s a daily occurrence.”
Year in review: How memory wars have shaped global headlines in 2023
Authoritarians are often adept at manipulating narratives about the past to their advantage. History and memory are core to national and individual identity, defining borders, asserting cultural norms and religious identities. Russia’s rewriting of Ukraine’s history has given it an ideological basis for its full-scale invasion and attempted erasure of Ukrainian identity. In India, Prime Minister’s Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has evoked the distant past to stoke intercommunity tension and redefine the secular Indian state as one based around Hinduism. And in the U.S., Republican politicians intent on fighting a culture war are attacking teachers and librarians, politicizing history books and school curricula.
How Big Tech is buying influence in academia
Last May, several of Big Tech’s wealthiest and most powerful movers and shakers signed a very short statement that read: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”. I am no fan of extinction,...
Sweden’s ‘land of the future’ could save the planet. But at what cost?
Kiruna sits high up in the Swedish Arctic, a starkly beautiful place, surrounded by primeval forests, powerful rivers and rugged mountains. More than a century ago, industrialists named it “the land of the future” because of the rich seams of iron ore that lay beneath the earth. But today, mining has carved out so much of the land that it’s causing deeper, tectonic shifts in the Earth’s crust. Unlike the timed nightly rumblings from the mine, these are real seismic tremors that shake the town’s foundations without warning. It is as if Kiruna’s mountain, woken from its slumber, is trying to settle itself.
In Russia, the anti-LGBTQ campaign marches on
Russian police raided LGBTQ clubs across Moscow on the evening of December 1. One man described having to wait for hours with dozens of others, some of whom were forced to strip down to their underwear, as police searched the club. Police claimed they were looking for drugs, but meanwhile took photographs of each customer’s ID. The previous day, Russia’s Supreme Court had declared the international gay rights movement “extremist,” a repressive, if vague, measure that effectively bans LGBTQ activities in the country. The ruling, so quickly followed by the raids, has left Russia’s queer community reeling.
Why climate conferences are now hubs of disinformation
COP28, the global climate conference currently underway in Dubai, has produced so much doublespeak, so much straight-up disinformation, that the point of the whole exercise deserves to be called into question. What progress, for instance, towards cutting emissions can be made when Sultan al-Jaber, the man tasked by the host state with leading the conference insists that there is “no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuels is what’s going to achieve 1.5 C”
How UAE oil money is greasing the wheels of academia
On Saadiyat Island, a glamorous cultural enclave off the coast of Abu Dhabi, you can stroll through the art galleries of the Louvre in the morning, lunch on the beachfront promenade, and take in a lecture at New York University before the day is done. Dotted around superstructures built by celebrity architects are luxury condominiums, shopping malls, a golf course and pristine beaches. It is the proverbial miracle in the desert.
For OpenAI’s CEO, the rules don’t apply
Since my last newsletter, a shakeup at OpenAI somehow caused Sam Altman to be fired, hired by Microsoft, and then re-hired to his original post in less than a week’s time. Meet the new boss, literally the same as the old boss. There are still a lot of unknowns...
Russian propagandists turn their attention to Gaza
Earlier this week, social media influencer and Russian state television’s favorite political commentator Jackson Hinkle celebrated reaching 2.2 million followers on X. He called on his vast audience to subscribe to his X Premium account for $3 to help him “CRUSH ZIONIST LIES!” The California-born Hinkle, only 24, has become a prominent social media presence solely due to his zealous pursuit of untruths.
Stamping out hate speech or stifling free speech?
Since the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, German officials have made it clear that they support Israel whatever its response. With Germany’s desire to atone for its history, it is understandable that it feels a special duty towards Israel. But the German response has lacked nuance. It has arguably conflated sympathy for Palestine with support for Hamas. And by banning protests and condemning standard criticism of Israeli policies as antisemitic, German authorities have been accused of stifling free speech and expression.
When deepfakes go nuclear
Two servicemen sit in an underground missile launch facility. Before them is a matrix of buttons and bulbs glowing red, white and green. Old-school screens with blocky, all-capped text beam beside them. Their job is to be ready, at any time, to launch a nuclear strike. Suddenly, an alarm sounds. The time has come for them to shoot their deadly weapon.
In India, Big Brother is watching
Last month, journalist Anand Mangnale woke to find a disturbing notification from Apple on his mobile phone: “State-sponsored attackers may be targeting your iPhone.” He was one of at least a dozen journalists and Indian opposition politicians who said they had received the same message. “These attackers are likely targeting you individually because of who you are and what you do,” the warning read. “While it’s possible this is a false alarm, please take it seriously.”
Fleeing war? Need shelter? Personal data first, please
More people have been displaced by violence and natural disasters over the past decade than ever before in human history, and the numbers — that already exceed 100 million — keep climbing. Between ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan’s mass expulsion of people of Afghan origin and Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, millions more people have been newly forced to leave their homes since October.
Gaza’s journalists, caught between bombs and disinformation
More than 11,000 people have been killed in about six weeks, as Israel bombs the Gaza Strip in its bid to wipe out Hamas. The numbers are beginning to have a numbing effect. And that may be precisely the point. “We Are Not Numbers” is a website that publishes stories largely written by young people who live in Gaza. The numbers, the writers say, “don’t convey the daily personal struggles and triumphs, the tears and the laughter, and the aspirations that are so universal that if it weren’t for the context they would immediately resonate with virtually everyone.”
Why are climate skeptics speaking out about the Uyghur genocide?
Last month, California’s Gavin Newsom made headlines across the world when he sat down with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Flashing a smile for the cameras and going in for a chummy handshake, the Democratic governor’s message was clear. “Divorce is not an option,” he later told reporters of the rocky relationship between the United States and its closest economic rival. “The only way we can solve our climate crisis is to continue our long standing cooperation with China.” Reducing dependence on fossil fuels, Newsom said, is among the most urgent items on the shared agenda of the two countries.
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