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Maria Farrell
Maria Farrell

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Published in OneZero

·Dec 5, 2019

Now Any Government Can Buy China’s Tools for Censoring the Internet

Beijing’s ‘autocracy as a service’ is becoming the top choice for governments that want to control the internet — In 2010, Uganda passed a law that expanded the legal justifications for intercepting citizens’ communications. Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni had begun to see the internet as a real threat, and after the 2016 election and protests the following year, he turned to foreign companies like Germany’s FinFisher to monitor the…

China

8 min read

Now Any Government Can Buy China’s Tools for Censoring the Internet
Now Any Government Can Buy China’s Tools for Censoring the Internet
China

8 min read


Published in OneZero

·Oct 8, 2019

The Internet Must Be More Than Facebook

If Big Tech becomes synonymous with the internet, we could lose free choice, democracy, and even the ability to imagine a different world — Big Tech wants to be the totality of what we see and do online. From Apple’s carefully curated user experience to the sprawling empires of Google/Alphabet and Facebook, the tech firms’ ultimate goal is to own everything we do up and down the technological stack. And if they win, we’ll…

Internet

8 min read

The Internet Must Be More Than Facebook
The Internet Must Be More Than Facebook
Internet

8 min read


Published in OneZero

·Dec 4, 2018

Do Tech Slogans Really ‘Make the World a Better Place’?

The simple deception of Big Tech’s aspirations — Bringing people together. Changing the world. Making the world a better place. There’s a reason so many tech company slogans sound similar. It’s not just that they’re all trying to do the same thing — commodify human experience, sell it back to us, and pipe the tax-free profits offshore. It’s…

Tech

7 min read

Do Tech Slogans Really ‘Make the World a Better Place’?
Do Tech Slogans Really ‘Make the World a Better Place’?
Tech

7 min read


Jun 25, 2018

How to Build A.I. We Can Relate to

Writers are the key to creating a frictionless future worth having — My dog loves to play with his toy snake by repeatedly breaking its neck. He prefers traveling on the top of London buses so he can see what’s happening in the world, and he obsessively checks pee-mails and sex-messages from other dogs as we walk around the neighborhood. His seriousness…

Artificial Intelligence

8 min read

How to Build A.I. We Can Relate to
How to Build A.I. We Can Relate to
Artificial Intelligence

8 min read


Jun 7, 2018

How to Cope with the End of the World

The worst thing we can do is collectively lose faith in our future — I’m writing this on a train. Looking out the window, I reflexively scout for raised, defensible structures away from main roads. I’ve done this since I was 10, planning for when the time came. I thought a lot, then, about when the time came. I planned how, when the nuclear…

Politics

17 min read

How to Cope with the End of the World
How to Cope with the End of the World
Politics

17 min read


Apr 2, 2018

If We Remember How Unity Feels, We Can Save Democracy

It only takes 10% of your time to inspire change — The year I turned 10, Ireland had two general elections. Every day after school, a bunch of us walked the town, leafleting and running errands for canvassers. We were fearless. We owned the place. Think Lyra Belacqua racing round an Oxford no adult even suspects exists. …

Politics

9 min read

If We Remember How Unity Feels, We Can Save Democracy
If We Remember How Unity Feels, We Can Save Democracy
Politics

9 min read


Mar 20, 2018

One Hell of a To-Do List for Saving Democracy

Here’s how we defeat economic inequality and political alienation — French economist Thomas Piketty used a century’s worth of data to show two terrifying things: The return on capital is higher than overall economic growth, so the rich tend to get richer and society becomes increasingly unequal over time. Only one thing quickly and reliably reduces inequality: war (or its…

Politics

6 min read

One Hell of a To-Do List for Saving Democracy
One Hell of a To-Do List for Saving Democracy
Politics

6 min read


Mar 13, 2018

Even the World’s Biggest Problems Aren’t Hopeless

Lessons from history’s most intractable challenges — There’s a point at which disasters compound and multiply, when the worse it gets, the worse it gets. Motivations thicken. Events accelerate. The gunman’s shadow looms in the doorway as children hide uselessly under desks. The din of drones whining around the windowless apartment block kicks up half an octave…

HIV

5 min read

Even the World’s Biggest Problems Aren’t Hopeless
Even the World’s Biggest Problems Aren’t Hopeless
HIV

5 min read


Feb 19, 2018

Even at the End of the World, There’s Still a Duty of Hope

We need to fix what we can and set fire to the rest — without a revolution. — What if we were to look right in the eye of the scary truth that even if most of us survive 2018, human civilization as we know it is about to squeeze through a decisive couple of decades and may not make it? What if we looked our potential extinction…

Foreign Policy

6 min read

Even at the End of the World, There’s Still a Duty of Hope
Even at the End of the World, There’s Still a Duty of Hope
Foreign Policy

6 min read

Maria Farrell

Maria Farrell

1.3K Followers

Irish writer based in London. Tech policy, possible futures, politics. @mariafarrell http://www.crookedtimber.org

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