The AI craze
From the Reports from the Economic Front blog by Marty Hart-Landsberg Are you one of those loudly demanding that companies create AI-powered systems to amuse you on Facebook, be…
We need a full public service internet – state-owned infrastructure is just the start
by Christian Fuchs in the Conversation on 2 December 2019. The UK Labour Party’s 2019 election manifesto contains plans to bring BT’s internet infrastructure business into public ownership by creating British Broadband and to…
Digital colonialism under the Western model of technology
Big Tech is reinventing colonialism in the digital era says Michael Kwet in discussing centralized control of the Internet at the root of current problems like privacy and monopoly power…
National Infrastructure Plan (NIP) 2050
The government's SA Connect aimed to deliver widespread broadband access to 90% of the country by 2020 but the 2016 targets have not yet been met. The new National Infrastructure…
The Dialectic of Tech and Society
Contribution to GTI Forum Technology and the Future by Brian Tokar Since the heyday of technological determinism in the 1960s, many authors have written eloquently about how developments in technology are…
Competition in the Global Economy
The Competition Commission of South Africa's 2020 report on Competition in the Global Economy. According to Webber Wentzel: The Competition Commission (Commission) has called for comments by 5 October 2020,…
R2K’s Alternatives to Privatised Telecommunication
In South Africa, as in much of the rest of the world, telecommunication services are concentrated in a handful of monopolistic private companies that reap massive profits at the expense…
The Internet and Monopoly Capitalism
from the Monthly Review by Daniel Auerbach and Brett Clark Without question, the Internet has had a profound influence on the world. As with most technologies, debates rage over whether this development has…
R2K’s Lived Cost of Communication
What is the real cost of communications for ordinary people? R2K, in collaboration with the LINK Centre at Wits, has conducted a study on the lived cost of communications in…