Jon Festinger
A Ring Trilogy: A Primer on Police Partnerships, Privacy and Facial Recognition Concerns
Recently, Amazon’s Ring (the electronic doorbell and surveillance technology and subsequent apps) has been the subject of criticism by media outlets for various reasons such as privacy breaches and mismanaging user data. Many issues pertaining to Amazon’s Ring intersects with some of our course lecture topics and student presentations of data privacy, facial recognition technology […]
Chinese Government Censors Coronavirus Terms
In contrast to Jocelyn’s post where freedom of speech in North America has caused rumours about the coronavirus to rapidly spread, China holds a tight reign on what information can be shared about the virus. According to this CBC article, https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/china-coronavirus-censorship-social-media-1.5483535, China has strong legislation that mandates social media platforms to censor content that “undermines […]
News of the Week; February 26, 2020
COMMUNICATIONS Complaint filed against Bell Canada and Rogers for anti-competitive conduct: Bell and Rogers sometimes inflated rates by more than 900 per cent, CRTC found Deja Vu All Over Again: Looking Back at Two Decades of Bell, Telus and Rogers Battles Over the Canadian Wireless Market (Michael Geist) Who Runs Canadian Telecom Policy Anyway?: Why […]
News of the Week; February 19, 2020
COMMUNICATIONS Broadcast Panel Commissioned Report Found Canada Ranks First Among Peer Countries in Spending on TV Production, Domestic TV Production, and Employment Per Capita (Michael Geist) The BTLR and USMCA, Part Two: Why the Broadcast Panel Recommendations Could Cost Canadians Millions in Retaliatory Tariffs (Michael Geist) CBC Leads Call for New Government Regulations to Support […]
Millions of tweets peddled conspiracy theories about coronavirus in other countries, an unpublished U.S. report says
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/29/twitter-coronavirus-misinformation-state-department/ This article discusses a really fascinating problem that is exacerbating the fear accompanying the coronavirus epidemic – misinformation disseminated over social media. As described in the article, approximately 2 million tweets promoted conspiracy theories about the coronavirus have been circulated since the outbreak. While some of the information being circulated online is accurate, MIT’s […]
Group Presentation: Cyberbullying, Social Media & the Law
Hi Everyone! Gaby, Kate, Leah and I will be presenting on cyberbullying on Tuesday. Our presentation is broken down into the following sections: 1) Cyberbullying in Canada This part of the presentation discusses how cyberbullying is a growing social problem. Canada has experienced two high profile cyberbullying cases – Rhetaeh Parsons and Amanda Todd. In […]
The Future of Transatlantic Data Flows
The transfer of personal data is inherent in most online activities. As many of the top online companies are located in the United States, every day there is a huge flow of data from America to Europe. As a result, the data becomes subject to the EU’s more stringent privacy laws such as GDPR . […]
Huawei Is Winning the Argument in Europe, as the U.S. Fumbles to Develop Alternatives
Much like the UK, Germany appears to not be fully capitulating to American calls to have an outright ban on Huawei’s involvement in national 5G networks. Many other European nations are also expressing skepticism towards an outright ban. While they have indicated that they are willing to curtail the involvement of companies that are deemed […]
“Why Does the Radio Keep Playing the Same Songs?”
This was the question posed by my uncle over the Christmas break. “You know when I was your age, we didn’t have this zip-zap-app stuff, we heard it all on the radio! Disk jockeys must really be lazy these days.” * I didn’t have an answer for him at the time, but after some digging […]
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