A short note to let you now that ‘The Town Crier’ on Ghost has migrated to Substack where we are going under the name ‘Burning Platforms’. As you would have noticed Town Crier has been dormant for the past 12 months but I am recommitting to creating regular updates and
Hear Ye, Hear Ye, The advocates of free speech have wielded their rhetorical swords to slay proposed laws to force tech companies to keep their platforms safe. But before we all cry freedom, let’s have a sober discussion about what’s really going on here: the very notion of
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory I’ve been counselling colleagues, friends and loved ones not to over-catastrophise the situation. But when it comes to tech that is precisely what we need to be doing. As much as this is a victory for the
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! I never thought I’d write these words but ‘my favourite economists have just won the Nobel Prize’. Daren Acemoglu and Simon Johnson were two of three economists awarded the gong for their work over many years looking at the role democratic institutions play in driving
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! I think it was Spinal Tap‘s lead guitarist David St Hubbins who observed "there’s a fine line between stupid and clever." So too the overlords of AI who wax lyrical about the omniscient powers of their tech. We’ve just lived through
Hear ye! Hear ye! Thanks to all of those who attended this week’s Burning Platforms Live special briefing on privacy reform. It was our first live event since the lockdown and it was great to experience the energy of a virtual room. Those who have been on the journey
Burning Platforms, our fortnightly podcast brought to you by Per Capita's Centre of the Public Square, decodes the power of politics and Big Tech. This week we are bringing you a very special briefing on privacy reform where you can join us LIVE online. Register here to be
Hear ye, Hear Ye, They call it the bureaucrats battle-cry: What do we want? Incremental change! When do we want it? In due course! When it comes to government action on technology - be it AI or privacy - it seems our Federal Government is taking this ethos seriously. This
Hear Ye, Hear Ye. Some weeks can feel like years when you get the privilege to learn and grow and challenge your assumptions and the past seven days has been that for your humble Town Crier. The week traveling the nation with Audrey Tang and her off-sider Glen Weyl was
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! We are excited to be hosting Audrey Tang and Glen Weyl on their Australian trip next week and, if you are a Sydney or Canberra based supporter, we have events you can attend with us. First, we have a Sydney public lecture where I’ll be
Hear ye, Hear ye, I thought I was going to launch my Civility Manifesto last week, but then when I got to the point of delivering it, I realised that this was an act of self-delusion. Instead I gave this speech which steps out my thinking over the past few
Hear Ye, Hear Ye It’s time to open the kimono and reveal some of the thinking that we have been developing to inform the work of the Centre of the Public Square. Next Wednesday (July 17) I’m speaking at the John Cain Lunch where I’ll be unveiling
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Over the past fortnight we have seen two compelling but contradictory calls for platform regulation that speak to the knot we are currently stuck in. On the one hand Telegram’s CEO Meredith Whittaker, a harsh critic of both corporate and government surveillance, has been in
Hear Ye, Hear Ye! I’ve just returned from the ACTU Congress in Adelaide, the bi-annual gathering to set the direction of the union movement. My two big take outs: (i) a good time was had by all and (ii) the coming AI wave loomed large over the whole event.
Hear Ye, Hear Ye! In a world of division and discord at least we can agree on the villain: the giant data companies that have taken over the internet and the tech bros who own them. Who would have thought the most powerful companies on earth would reveal themselves to
Hear ye, Hear ye, The Centre of the Public Square was #beyondthrilled to host the launch of ‘Fringe to Famous’ last week, a scholarly work into the way Australian culture is nurtured in Australia. One of the authors was my friend Tony Moore, a true intellectual dynamo. Apart from his
Hear Ye, Hear Ye The global showdown between the Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner and the godlike powers of Elon Musk draws the two most contested principles of the internet onto a single battleground. On one hand, internet’s foundational promise of the liberating power of nature of free-flowing information, emancipating
Hear Ye, Hear Ye, In my fantasy world where I am living by the beach and writing essays all day I would currently be working on a long piece called ‘In Defence of Moderation’. The idea of moderation, to pull back and think before one spews forth, may seem like
Download our full submission here. Australians are increasingly concerned about privacy, particularly online privacy. Most want additional rights under Australian privacy laws. Findings in the 2023 Australian Community Attitudes to Privacy Survey reveal that three in five Australians see the protection of their personal information as a major concern in
Hear ye, Hear ye, This is a bumper holiday read. We're currently getting our production processes in place so we can publish more regularly around the Burning Platforms podcast. As we get this sorted, we can offer you link s to not one but two terrific discussions with
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Welcome to the first instalment of The Town Crier, the mouthpiece of our new initiative, The Centre of the Public Square, which we launched in late 2023 with Per Capita. As the name implies, The Centre’s focus is on building platforms for better public discussions