CEOs like Alphabet’s Larry Page and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg have repeatedly claimed that users have choice. That we choose which information to share, and therefore control our data.This narrative is misleading, and here’s why.Privacy settings Privacy settings only cover a small portion of our data. They allow us to explicitly choose “yes” or “no” in …
April 2018 archive
Apr 12
OONI’s recent participation at events in Africa, India, and Europe
Over the last months, the OONI team had the opportunity to host workshops, give presentations, and participate in discussions at the following conferences and events: Seminar at the University of Cape Town (South Africa) Internet Policy in Africa: Research Methods for Advocacy workshop (Uganda) Nullcon 2018 (India) Internet Freedom Festival (IFF) 2018 (Spain) Tor Meeting (Italy) These events provided us …
Apr 12
Sierra Leone: Network disruptions amid 2018 runoff elections
Last weekend, two network disruptions occurred in Sierra Leone right before and after the country’s runoff elections.This post examines these disruptions and shares data that corroborates local reports.It seems that the network disruptions were caused by an ACE submarine cable cut. Google traffic and BGP data suggest that the second disruption, following the runoff elections, could be an internet blackout.Read …
Apr 12
Investigating Internet Blackouts from the Edge of the Network: OONI’s new upcoming methodology
Imagine a day where the internet is shut down completely. You have to work, check the news, and communicate with your friends and family. All of a sudden, you can’t do any of that, because there simply is no internet. It feels like a strange form of time travel has taken place: you’re thrown several …