Earlier this year, leading disability charity Scope announced a radical new strategy that would mean enormous change for the organisation. Here the charity’s chief executive talks through the plans for this transformation: how they got here, where they’re going, how they’ll do it, and why it matters.
While the huge enabling power of social media has long been recognised and used by campaigners and grassroots movements to effect change – most dramatically illustrated right now by #MeToo - the last eighteen months have also seen a powerful shadow side emerge as algorithms have gained in potency.
We all know by now that social media’s impact on our lives can be pervasive and all-encompassing – and it’s not just our lifestyles, careers and relationships that are influenced by it.
On February 13th Amber Rudd announced the creation of a new tool to remove extremist content from the internet. However, to focus too much on content removal and takedowns would be a grave error. We are losing sight of the fact that the online space is not just a breeding ground for extremism; it can also be turned against violent extremist groups to reach vulnerable individuals and change their paths. This is why, over the past six months, I’ve run a programme which takes a different approach.
…Those words from Julia Unwin powerfully capture the spirit of the Change Convention, hosted by Corra Foundation on 9 October in Edinburgh. The day brought together around 300 people, mainly from the voluntary sector, and offered a platform for conversations about how we can create positive change in times of uncertainty. Illustrator Amber Anderson spent …
A growing appetite for crowd sourcing solutions to societal challenges online – reflected in the success of news sites such as Positive News, The New Internationalist and Mental Health Today – offers hope for the futures of both civil society and journalism. I co-edit Mental Health Today and we regularly see our “crowd” of 70,000 …
The last 10 years have seen a revolution in our ability to communicate with those outside our immediate circle. The advent of social media and new technology gives us the ability to broadcast our views and experiences in ways undreamed of a generation ago. This makes mass communication seem not just possible, but mandatory. At …
Just like the railway, Facebook is a private monopoly running a public service. We, the public, don’t have real competition and consumer choice, but we don’t have a democratic say as citizens either. The internet has been a virtual wild west, fast-moving and little regulated, with tech companies competing for territory. But now there are clear natural monopolies …
A perfect storm of hacking and big data, corporate spying, and the surveillance-obsessed British state puts everyone at risk. Two years ago the human rights NGO Amnesty International was informed that the UK government had spied on its communications. It had taken 18 months of litigation and persistence to confirm their suspicions. In response, Amnesty’s …
The principle that the internet should be as fast as possible for all its users means small voices with big ideas can transform society. Let's keep it that way.
