Ingolf Pernice (Humboldt): Global Constitutionalism and the Internet: Taking People Seriously. Google has acted as judge, jury and executioner in the wake of Europe’s right to be forgotten ruling — but what does society lose when a private corporation rules public information? From The New Yorker, were Google’s practices anti-competitive or just anti-competitor? Vauhini Vara wonders. For tech titans, sharing has its limits. Timothy B. Lee on how NIMBYism is holding back Silicon Valley and the American economy. From The Baffler, the taming of tech criticism: Evgeny Morozov reviews The Glass Cage: Automation and Us by Nicholas Carr; and Dale Lately on Silicon Valley’s cult of nothing. Dark Leviathan: Henry Farrell on how the Silk Road might have started as a libertarian experiment, but it was doomed to end as a fiefdom run by pirate kings. Emilie Bickerton reviews The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age by Astra Taylor. What does the lived reality of big data feel like? Kate Crawford on the anxieties of big data. Emily Parker reviews Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier. When apps are driven by the market, there’s only one winner — it’s not you. Paul Voosen on the hidden story behind the code that runs our lives. Caitlin Dewey on how what you don’t know about Internet algorithms is hurting you (and you probably don’t know very much). The future is here — are we ready for it? Breaking up with the Internet: David Byrne imagines a society that has gone totally offline — if only to suggest what a truly secure online life might look like.
