Johanna speaks with Alice Dawkins, Executive Director of Reset.Tech Australia, an independent, non-partisan policy initiative wrestling with questions about online harms & safety, digital information markets, democracy and tech accountability.
In a wide-ranging conversation, the pair discuss topics including:
- Alice’s experience in Myanmar working with public interest lawyers involved in that country’s pro-democracy movement
- Reset’s research on young people and privacy online in Australia
- Social media platform monitoring during the Voice referendum campaign
- Truth in political advertising
- The federal government’s plans to introduce new laws to provide the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) with powers to combat online misinformation and disinformation
- The limitation of co-regulatory approaches to tech policymaking
- Tech exceptionalism and accountability
- The importance of securing access to platform data for researchers and civil society experts
Relevant Links:
Reset.Tech Australia: https://au.reset.tech/
Reset’s report on Young People and Online Privacy: https://au.reset.tech/news/report-realising-young-people-s-rights-in-the-digital-environment/
Exposure draft of the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023: https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/department/media/publications/communications-legislation-amendment-combatting-misinformation-and-disinformation-bill-2023
John Naughton’s columns (professor of the public understanding of technology at the Open University and author of From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg: What You Really Need to Know About the Internet): https://www.theguardian.com/profile/johnnaughton
Logic(s) magazine: https://logicmag.io/
Follow:
Alice Dawkins Twitter: @adawko
Alice Dawkins Linkedin: Alice Dawkins