In recent months, followers of influential liberal bloggers have been interviewed by police as China widens its net of online surveillance Late last year, Duan*, a university student in China, used a virtual private network to jump over China’s great firewall of internet censorship and download social media platform Discord. Overnight he entered a community in which thousands of members with diverse views debated political ideas and staged mock elections. People could join the chat to discuss ideas such as democracy, anarchism and communism. “After all, it’s hard for us to do politics in reality, so we have to do it in a group chat,” Yang Minghao, a popular vlogger, said in a video on YouTube. Continue reading...

Journalists are using artificial intelligence avatars to combat Maduro’s media crackdown since disputed election The Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, who spent some of his happiest years chronicling life in Caracas, once declared journalism “the best job in the world”. Not so if you are reporting on today’s Venezuela, where journalists are feeling the heat as the South American country lurches towards full-blown dictatorship under President Nicolás Maduro. Continue reading...