, Columnist
Don’t Let Autocrats Run the Internet After Covid
The West needs to fight back against disinformation, hacking and ransomware after a year in which freedoms were in retreat around the world.
The pandemic’s digital shadow.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us two sides of technological progress. There’s the positive side that’s delivered safe and effective vaccines in record time, helped economies with new stay-at-home online tools and improved disease surveillance and public health.
And there’s the negative side that’s turbocharged malicious actors’ and authoritarian regimes’ disinformation campaigns, hacking and disruption of opponents, and fostered a rise in public harms like ransomware attacks and fraud.