ICT policy
Every thirty months the amount of information that can be transmitted over a wireless internet connection has the potential to double. Wireless could be the way to provide affordable broadband to millions of people currently living with poor connectivity. However the policy and regulation related to spectrum is often inefficient, secretive and ill-informed. APC’s new research will examine how spectrum is assigned, who assigns it and what policy or regulatory framework they use.
Wireless technology could radically transform the lives of millions of people living with poor connectivity — but only if the policy makes sense. Our research critiques the situation in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill seeks to address an important issue. However the way it does so threatens to hinder the preservation of traditional knowledge, severely diminish the South African public domain and limit access to knowledge.
So, is anybody up in a huff about ACTA in your country? Nice that at least netcitizen protest (amongst other activism) encouraged it going public.
While the Indian government attempts to include gender on the official agenda in traditional sectors like health and education, gender within the technology sphere is a relatively new concept in India and one that government officials are just not ready to take seriously. They are not convinced by recent findings on the disempowerment of women into rural e-governance in Chhattisgarh, India’s ...
Just as women are disproportionately the victims of violence worldwide, the situation is just as bad online. The UN estimates that 95% of aggressive behavior, harassment, abusive language and denigrating images in online spaces are aimed at women and come from partners or former male partners. Other surveys show that the victims of cyberstalking are predominantly female. Just as women are disp...
Freedom of speech and its flipside, access to information, is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. However federally-funded libraries are required to prevent people under eighteen accessing “harmful” content. Kevicha Echols and Melissa Ditmore investigate the use of internet filters on public library computers and find that measures adopted by libraries range from insta...
Proposals to fight cybercrime have been floating around in Brazil for more than a decade but the backers – primarily banks and music companies worried about internet fraud and unauthorised music sharing – couldn’t find public or parliamentary support till they switched their focus to child pornography. Lula has refused to sanction online censorship and the government has opene...
Two out of three gay South African respondents to an online survey said that going online had helped them accept their sexual orientation and many admitted to coming out online before they did so offline. But the voices of transgender people rarely appear in studies and surveys. To address the gap, APC EroTICs researcher Jeanne Prinsloo of the University of Grahamstown looks at the use of a tra...
“The gay rights movement in Lebanon would not be anywhere near where it is today if it weren’t for the internet”. In the midst of strongly censored neighbours, Lebanon enjoys online freedom that is hampered only by very slow and very expensive internet connections – but is that freedom there to stay? In a country where homosexuality is punishable by upto two years in prison, Nadine Moaw...
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