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Issues on the Frontlines of Technology and Politics.
Global political trends in recent years have put to rest any illusions that the relationship between technological innovation and progress in democratic politics would be largely positive. Digital technology is disrupting international politics in myriad ways.

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Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

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Table of Contents
Introduction
Steven Feldstein
Global political trends in recent years have put to rest any illusions that the relationship between technological innovation and progress in democratic politics would be largely positive. Digital technology is disrupting international politics in myriad ways. To start, it is bringing new dimensions to the authoritarian playbook, enabling governments to more easily manipulate information consumed by citizens, to monitor dissent and track political opponents, and to censor communications. Democracies, meanwhile, struggle to strike the right balance between rewarding economic innovation and reaping the financial benefits of Big Tech, while protecting user privacy, guarding against surveillance misuses, and countering disinformation and hate speech.

The COVID-19 crisis has intensified these tensions. Governments have seized upon the pandemic as an excuse to introduce a new wave of restrictions-emergency decrees that prohibit public gatherings, measures that censor online speech, and directives that affect user privacy. States have deployed new applications to counter the spread of the disease, rolling out contact tracing apps, facial recognition systems, and digital health passports. Some of these technologies represent legitimate attempts to control the virus but many measures lack basic safeguards to protect data privacy. Certain governments are using data collected from public health interventions in pursuit of unrelated law enforcement activities. It is unclear whether states will retract these restrictions when the pandemic finally ebbs or if they are here to stay.

As the United States' influence decreases and emerging states, particularly China, increase their power, the global online commons is fraying. Experts once divided internet governance into "democratic" and "authoritarian" domains. On one side stood the United States and its allies, which advanced a model centered round an " open, interoperable, reliable and secure internet" that prioritized individual freedom of action, liberal values, and minimal government interference. On the other side stood a smaller group of countries led by China, Russia, and Iran, which offered an alternative model premised on "information security"-maintaining that a country's sovereign interests should dictate which rules apply. Despite insistence by U.S. President Joe Biden's administration that the world remains divided between " techno democracies" and "techno autocracies," a more accurate description would be fragmentation. Increasingly, the world is splintering into national or regional internets, governed by different norms and rules and incorporating democratic and authoritarian characteristics.

In 2021 alone, a slew of countries, many of them democratic, have adopted restrictive digital regulations more at home in authoritarian states. In June, for example, Nigeria banned Twitter from operating in the country. The reason was that Twitter had removed a tweet from President Muhammadu Buhari that the company claimed violated its community guidelines. In response, the government accused Twitter of " undermining Nigeria's corporate existence" and outlawed the service. Meanwhile in India, the government decreed in February that all online media outlets and video-content providers were required to appoint local representatives to respond to every government complaint within fifteen days. The law also authorized state officials to censure or delete content that crossed certain lines. Several months later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi became so incensed after Twitter labeled a post from his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party " manipulated media" that he authorized a special forces raid on the company's offices. Similarly, the governments of Turkey, Uganda, the Philippines, and Indonesia have cherry-picked regulatory approaches to create distinctive local versions of the internet-whether incorporating social media taxes and localization requirements or enacting burdensome content restrictions. More recently, Russian authorities have refined a new tactic-demanding that Apple and Google remove programs from their app stores linked to opposition leaders-ahead of Duma elections.

These trends cause growing concerns about how technology, politics, and state authority will evolve. Can democracies strike an appropriate balance between safeguarding their societies from dangerously polarizing online rhetoric while maintaining commitments to protecting free expression? Can democratic leaders reach consensus about how to address core policy problems such as establishing coherent rules about personal data protection and privacy, devising guidelines for the responsible use of emerging technologies like facial recognition, or finally reining in Big Tech's excessive market and surveillance power? What will be China's influence on technology and data governance, and will its efforts to rewrite cyber norms allow digital authoritarian approaches to gain ground? Can civic activists, independent journalists, and human rights advocates continue to find innovative ways to push back against government repression using new tools, tactics, and technologies? The answers to these questions are not foretold-all of them represent major areas of contestation.

While policymakers seek resolutions to these pressing questions, they can benefit from the ground-level insights of experts, scholars, researchers, and activists. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has assembled the Digital Democracy Network-a diverse group of cutting-edge thinker-activists engaged in work on technology and politics. The network aims to facilitate cross-regional knowledge sharing, support collaborative strategies to pressing problems, and investigate previously unknown and emerging questions in the field. This report represents the network's first effort to describe challenges to governance posed by digital technology.

This collection highlights four themes.

First, it focuses attention on the COVID-19 pandemic and evaluates national and regional responses to the disease. Experts are divided about the long-term political consequences of the pandemic. Groups such as Freedom House, International IDEA, and International Center for Not-for-profit Law (ICNL) document how surveillance overreach, data and privacy vulnerabilities, media suppression, content restrictions, and emergency decrees have challenged democratic institutions and undermined civil liberties. ICNL, for example, reports via its COVID-19 Civic Freedom Tracker that through September 2021, 109 countries had issued emergency declarations, 57 had instituted measures that impact freedom of expression, 150 had implemented restrictions on freedom of assembly, and 60 had enacted restrictions on privacy.

Other organizations, however, paint a less grim picture. Researchers from the Varieties of Democracy project write: "The COVID-19 pandemic has registered several wins and losses for democratic standards. While high-income Western democracies have generally performed quite well, several low and lower-middle income countries stand out for their innovation and advances." They note that the most serious democratic violations have tended to occur at the beginning stages of the pandemic and that the number of restrictions has declined over time. They observe that courts have pushed back successfully against overreach by executive branches, that certain countries have managed to avoid discrimination while establishing safe COVID-19 protocols, and that a number of states have successfully countered public health misinformation while avoiding broader media restrictions.

But, even if certain countries are witnessing recent governance improvements, several concerning trends stand out. One, in countries already prone to repression, the pandemic has given greater license to governments to enact additional restrictions on citizens' liberties. Countries like China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Turkey have pursued a mix of new surveillance technologies and legal directives that have significantly constrained freedom of association and expression. Two, governments have used the threat of disinformation as a pretext to persecute under "fake news" statutes scores of individuals, many of whom happen to be civil society activists and political opposition figures, while at the same time these governments have expanded their own public health disinformation efforts. State disinformation follows one of three lines: denialist (governments discredit or deny reports of outbreaks in their countries), anti-science (authorities minimize COVID-19 dangers while rejecting accepted medical recommendations), and curist (leaders promote unfounded treatments for the virus-such as Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro's endorsement of hydroxychloroquine).

Members of the Digital Democracy Network offer their own perspectives about the meaning and import of the COVID-19 pandemic. Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, affiliated with Chulalongkorn University and the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (the GIGA) and Sangeeta Mahapatra, also with the GIGA, provide a case-study analysis of COVID-19 restrictions in Southeast Asia. 'Gbenga Sesan, executive director of Nigeria's Paradigm Initiative, turns his eye to sub-Saharan Africa, where he finds a similar pattern of COVID-19-related digital abuses occurring in Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia. Irene Poetranto and Lotus Ruan, researchers affiliated with the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, present a global overview of new technologies adopted in response to the pandemic. They examine the cost of countries' growing reliance on advanced digital tools in public health and where this reliance might lead.

Second, network members describe how authoritarian regimes are employing new technologies to strengthen their rule and counter opposition and civic challenges. An expanding set of countries are relying on facial recognition technology, big data analytics, predictive policing techniques, and Safe City systems to enhance their security capabilities. The latest data from the Digital Society Project, updated to include 2020 statistics, continues to show a close relationship between authoritarian regimes, constraints on political freedoms, and corresponding government reliance on digital repression techniques. As Figure 1 shows, countries with the greatest prevalence of surveillance, censorship, internet shutdowns, and disinformation include authoritarian stalwarts like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and countries in Central Asia and the Horn of Africa. Conversely, Europe and the Americas display reduced levels of digital repression.

The analysis in this section explores different aspects of these repression trends. They ask: Why do states choose to adopt advanced technologies from authoritarian sources? What technological methods are Gulf states using to enact their political agendas? What can civil society make of the growth of internet shutdowns and social media blockages around the world? How are Myanmar's armed forces incorporating digital techniques as a means to enforce troop loyalty and maintain their control over the country?

Akin Unver, an associate professor of international relations at Turkey's Özyeğin University, argues that economic considerations, rather than geopolitical or ideological preferences, are more relevant in determining whether countries will source artificial intelligence technologies from China or from democratic states. Afef Abrougui, affiliated with the Social Media Exchange, writes about the adoption by Gulf Cooperation Council countries of a wide range of repressive measures. She emphasizes that high-tech tools not only support their political objectives but are also crucial for future economic growth. Jan Rydzak, affiliated with Ranking Digital Rights, describes the increased use of internet shutdowns to suppress dissent and block communications. He warns that government disdain for international human rights principles "is pushing resistance to the breaking point." Sarah Gordon, a research assistant at Carnegie, profiles how Myanmar's military is spreading online propaganda to reinforce troop loyalty, identify dissent, and isolate soldiers from the outside world.

The third section tackles problems of disinformation. Disinformation has become the tool of choice for many illiberal regimes, such as those in Brazil, Hungary, and the Philippines. They seek to manipulate public opinion to remain in power but are wary of instituting harder-edged repressive methods. In liberal democracies, meanwhile, the threat of disinformation increasingly stems from extreme political movements, particularly far-right groups, which harness social media to propagate falsehoods, spread conspiracy theories, and foment polarization and identity politics. Disinformation strategies involve common tactics: disseminate false narratives (whether pro-government propaganda, anti-vaccine conspiracies, or #StoptheSteal election claims), flood social media channels with competing or distracting information that overwhelms legitimate information sources, and deliberately post offensive content online to provoke or disrupt conversations.

In response to the deluge of misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech, governments have started cracking down on platforms-requiring companies to remove unacceptable content faster. Some governments, such as India's, only give platforms twenty-four hours to remove " manifestly unlawful" content. The EU has adopted an even stricter rule for terrorist content-platforms have one hour to remove offensive material. Many countries have also weakened or discarded intermediate liability protections for platforms. This is an understandable reaction in liberal democracies reeling from false and polarizing content. However, more cynical autocratic regimes have seized upon the opening this trend presents and classified any content critical of their agendas as "fake news" and subject to removal.

A bigger question is how much governments should hold platforms responsible for facilitating the spread of bad information. The evidence is murky, particularly in liberal democracies, about whether the surge in polarizing content is primarily a consequence of social media. While platforms provide useful targets for regulators eager to make a dent in disinformation, new research indicates that false information spreads due to a complex interaction between them and mainstream media outlets. It is insufficient to blame Facebook or Twitter's poor leadership for the much more complicated proliferation of politically motivated falsehoods.

Agustina Del Campo, who heads the Center for Studies on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information at the University of Palermo in Argentina, contends in her contribution that policymakers have been too quick to label disinformation as a new category of social harm-discarding prior consensus about what constitutes legal speech. She argues that the very notion of distinguishing and taking down disinformation is premised on the shaky assumption that a "single authoritative source" exists "against which all information can be assessed for truth." Jonathan Corpus Ong, with the University of Massachusetts Amherst, explains how the internet has accelerated the spread of hate speech against minority communities. He explores the growing levels of disinformation and hate speech targeted against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in the United States.

The fourth section presents case studies from two influential countries: India and Indonesia. As two of the world's largest democracies, both have experienced an illiberal resurgence in recent years. They represent crucial areas of struggle when it comes to determining whether information and communication technologies can enhance good governance or whether they will intensify polarization, identity politics, and autocratic control. Arindrajit Basu, a researcher in India's Centre for Internet and Society, emphasizes the importance for democracies like India to facilitate uncomfortable conversations around the rule of law and human rights at home in order to geopolitically compete against autocratic adversaries. Sinta Dewi Rosadi, a scholar at Padjadjaran University in Indonesia, scrutinizes digital privacy in that country. She observes that Indonesia's patchwork of regulations related to surveillance and data privacy has frequently resulted "in the denial of transparency and due process to Indonesian citizens."

These varying global perspectives shed light on emerging areas of contestation and highlight the complexities, urgency, and dangers involved in the advance of digital technologies and their effects on politics globally. The hope is that their contributions will help policymakers connect local perspectives with global concerns, and that it will bridge the research gap between international conversations taking place in capitals and local realities on the ground that are driving specific trends. Over time, Carnegie expects the network to generate new ideas that will influence relevant policy conversations-whether coming up with innovative approaches to strengthening digital safeguards, offering new regulatory models for the responsible governance of emerging technologies, or confronting concerning policies related to the COVID-19 crisis.

Acknowledgments

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace thanks the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation for the support that has made the establishment of the Digital Democracy Network possible. Additional valuable support has come from the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. The authors alone are responsible for the views expressed.

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Issues on the Frontlines of Technology and Politics

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Table of Contents Steven Feldstein Global political trends in recent years have put to rest any illusions that the relationship between technological innovation and progress in democratic politics would be largely positive. Digital technology is disrupting international politics in myriad ways.

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Due to the cost of living crisis, people are now finding ways to save money such as conserving energy and water. People are doing this by showering and doing their laundry lesser than they usually would. People are now using things that require less washes and instead of using dryers they are opting for air drying. Businesses are finding ways to innovate by producing natural fibre materials that is anti-bacterial in order for people to stay fresh for longer as many are showering less. It's been found that 31% of UK consumers have reduced the number of showers/baths they take.

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Empty shop figures fall but remain at risk from rising rates

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) - Local Data Company (LDC) vacancy monitor has reported that in the third quarter of 2022, the overall vacancy rate has fallen by 13.9%. However the BRC warns that if business rates rise in April 2023, vacancies are at risk…

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Onesie sales are on a rise
As the cost of living has sky rocketed, Britons are now stocking up onesies earlier than usual due to the increase of energy bills. Onesies used to be trendy years ago as celebrities such as Brad Pitt, Justin Bieber and One Direction members were seen wearing them outdoors making it an attire for not only indoors. Due to the surge in energy bills some Britons aren't able t afford to keep their homes warm which retailers seized the opportunity to stock their shelves with the insulating product. Retailer John Lewis has seen a sales increase in their onesies and other warm products recently. Customers are purchasing warm items just in time for the very cold winter ahead.

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Hot sellers: onesies are back as Britons try to save on energy bills

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Stores stock up on hooded blankets, heated ponchos and microwavable slippers as heating costs soar

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The cost of living crisis risks becoming a suicide crisis. What might keep us alive?
Psychologist Dr Sanah Ahsan looks at what might give us the hope we need to survive in an increasingly unliveable world.

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​​The cost of living crisis is impacting all aspects of our lives, from renting and dating troubles to soaring energy bills and food prices. gal-dem is publishing stories exploring our communities' experiences during this tumultuous time - and what we can do to collectively work towards a fairer future.
The UK's cost of living crisis risks becoming a suicide crisis. Charities are reporting an exponential rise in suicidal calls. "Money worries" are leaving children as young as seven wanting to die, and teenage suicide rates are the highest they've been for 30 years. Many adults can't sleep from financial stress, can't afford to eat, socialise or heat their homes. All this while the government gambles with an already perilous economy, removes life-saving caps on energy prices over the next two winters, and tells us to find better jobs if we can't afford our astronomically high bills.

How can we expect anyone to survive these unliveable conditions? For some, suicide may feel like the only available escape: a fire-exit from a society ablaze with oppression.

Yet, the story told about suicide is that it's a self-inflicted, tragic one-off incident, a result of an individual's mental health crisis. As a psychologist, I've seen how mental health services render the problem and solution as being within a psychologically damaged or "disordered" individual, overlooking the madness-inducing conditions of austerity and oppression. People who are suicidal and have a low-income are more likely to be medicated, and suicide prevention guidelines recommend reducing access to suicide methods like painkillers or sharp objects. But none of this actually addresses what's makingus want to die. Services may (just about) be keeping people alive, but how ethical is that when we're doing nothing to change unliveable conditions?

"Services may (just about) be keeping people alive, but how ethical is that when we're doing nothing to change unliveable conditions?"

Of course, the cause is not just poverty. It would be simplistic and unfair to impose a single explanation onto anybody's exit from this world. We also can't deny the global evidence that tells us violent austerity policies lead to more people taking their lives. The 2008 recession caused a sudden spike in UK suicides. Greece's suicide rates rose by 60% through their economic crisis. Suicide rates are rising in Pakistan, with floods causing economic suffering and damaging livelihoods. Farmers in India are lost to suicide every eight hours because of debt and the climate crisis devastating their work. Yet, professionals continue to prescribe antidepressants with side-effects that can increase suicidal feelings, and do nothing to alleviate the root cause.

As more people die by suicide in the UK during this cost-of-living crisis, will we simply say they were 'mentally ill'? Or will we question if they died at the hands of racism, poverty and violent austerity? Especially as it's racialised communities who are at increasing risk of suicide. We're twice as likely to be in serious debt than white people, most vulnerable to loan sharks, and most likely to be isolated and lonely. But ethnicity data for suicides has not been properly recorded. Plus, stigma attached to suicide in racialised communities means under-reporting is common, so we don't actually know how many racialised people are dying this way.

"We can't deny the global evidence that tells us violent austerity policies lead to more people taking their lives"

Cultural perceptions of suicide have followed a questionable trajectory: deemed to be a sin against god, an illegal act and a psychological disorder. These attempts to push suicidal feelings into the shadows might reflect society's fearfulness of any extreme expressions of despair. So, what if we were to have a less fear-driven, individualised and moralistic view on suicide?

This is a hard ask. Having lost loved ones to suicide, and experienced wanting to die myself, I know how emotive this subject can be. When faced with someone who is suicidal, we're forced not only to stare death in the face, but to feel our own powerlessness, misery or guilt. This isn't easy, nor is it our fault.

"What if we were to have a less fear-driven, individualised and moralistic view on suicide?"

But compassion is crucial. We need to make it easier to talk to each other about wanting to die, rather than robotically using tick-box questionnaires like"Do you have a suicide plan, or sharp objects at home?" It means allowing ourselves to be witnessed in our understandable (and messy) despair, and holding each other with love and kindness. Through talking about what's causing our pain, we not only learn to bear the complexity of suffering, we build trust, interdependence and break down stigma.

Crisis response isn't easy. Sometimes, we're desperate to bypass the hurt we feel at living in these violent systems. But learning to feel how pain shows up in our bodies helps us develop a more intimate and compassionate relationship with it, birthing greater choice and agency. This collective practice might be supported by chosen family, community, land, ancestors, therapists, medicines, prayer and support services. Collectively, our pain becomes a compass pointing us towards the structures of domination that need to change.

"Suicide prevention must have social action at its centre"

Suicide prevention must have social action at its centre. Cash transfer programmes could be life-saving right now, like the Brazilian Bolsa Familia programme which reduced suicide by 61% through financial aid over an 11-year period, ending in 2015. Economic and housing insecurity put us at greater risk of substance use, alcoholism, neglectful parenting and domestic violence - all of which make it harder to stay alive. This is why there are huge psychological benefits of implementing Universal Basic Income and secure housing.

Change is already being mobilised by groups like Don't Pay UK, Enough is Enough and People's Assembly - organisations which are campaigning for decent housing for everyone, slashing energy bills, ending food poverty and taxing the rich. Though these campaigns don't explicitly mention suicide or mental health, they support suicide prevention through crafting conditions for more liveable worlds.

The UK suicide researcher China Mills reminds us that "suicide is about social justice. There's government culpability in creating conditions that make people's lives unliveable. For example, the systematic dehumanisation of folks who claim benefits and experience poverty, as being 'burdens' on the economy." China runs the Deaths by Welfare project at Healing Justice London, which is co-designed by people with lived experience. It evidences untold numbers of disabled people who've died by suicide due to state violence. Some wrote suicide notes naming the Department for Work and Pensions, protesting murderous "fit for work" assessments and benefit sanctions. Even amid such devastation, the project unveils stories of rallying, resistance and collective power by groups like Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC).

"There are profound psychological benefits that come when oppressed people gain a sense of their collective power"

There are profound psychological benefits that come when oppressed people gain a sense of their collective power, as evidenced by the Egyptian revolution to trade union solidarity in Poland. Social action gives us a sense of purpose, connectedness and community, helping alleviate some of this state-enforced isolation, shame and misery. Yes, our hearts are smashed under the crushing weight of state violence, but can we (as the Indian author Arundhati Roy invites) still rally our fragments?

This returns us to the question: what might keep us here? Death can't be our only exit door. Through dismantling systems that are anti-life, we might live with more pleasure, safety and connectedness. Loving (and therefore therapeutic) conditions help make this possible: like secure housing, financial aid programmes and UBI, affordable living, abolishing benefit sanctions, community organising and trusting relationships that can hold our despair.

Beyond survival, we deserve freedom and joy. We can't allow the cost of living to become lifeitself. Thelivesof the most marginalised in our society are not disposable. Every one of us is inherently sacred, not just the tiny minority at the top. Our lives must be valued. It is survival of the nurtured, not survival of the fittest. We need each other. We have a greater chance of keeping each other here if we make this world a more liveable place to be.
Life is hard. Tending to our pain is a practice we can cultivate regularly in community - not only as a crisis response. Here are some groups, organisations and resources that centre justice in their frameworks of healing: Healing Justice London Mariwala Health Initiative Decarcerating Care resource library About Alternatives to Suicide Stop Suicide NENC Cost of Living crisis resources Madness and Oppression publication by The Icarus Project NYC'Wherever here is' cards co-created by Sanah Ahsan, Anaiis, Alex Mohammadi, Stella Tiendrebeogo & Lossapardo In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or you can email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at Text SHOUT to 85258 from anywhere in the UK, anytime 24/7, about any type of crisis, including suicidality. In the US, TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText provide LGBTQ+ crisis support. If you are thinking about suicide and in need of immediate support, please call the TrevorLifeline at 1-866-488-7386 or select TrevorChat below to connect with a counsellor. www.befrienders.org

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The cost of living crisis risks becoming a suicide crisis. What might keep us alive?

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​​The cost of living crisis is impacting all aspects of our lives, from renting and dating troubles to soaring energy bills and food prices. gal-dem is publishing stories exploring our communities' experiences during this tumultuous time - and what we can do to collectively work towards a fairer future.

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A mood-led e-shop by wellness platform Woo, Interbrand’s Best Global Brands report released, and the number of centi-millionaires is rising globally.
A Gen Z focused e-shop that offers a variety of well-being focused products for optimised emotional discovery. Products can be offered in homeware, beauty, lifestyle and tech and offers live experiences of breathing and healing work. The e-shop is colourful and aesthetically pleasing and consumers can shop based on moods like happy or trippy offering products like sex toys, shoes or psychedelics.

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Your daily digest of innovation across the consumer industries, highlighting the latest and best executed products and services.

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M&S unveils first virtual influencer

Marks & Spencer is the first UK high street retailer to introduce a virtual influencer, which it will use to promote clothing and accessories on Instagram.
M&S has introduced 'Mira' to be more innovative, helping them to identify trends and inspire their consumers. Mira's roll at the M&S support centre is a digital designer "helping to drive innovation on these platforms, with her expert knowledge of AR and VR [augmented and virtual reality]",by updating their website and app. Launched in January of 2018, the programme includes six womenswear influencers, two men focused influencers and two on kids wear. M&S' homes wear and beauty are also included.

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About nine years ago, Chang would frequently take photos of herself to share with friends and family, and often found herself wishing there was a way for users to instantly polish their appearances. The idea eventually led to a mobile app called YouCam, which allows users to instantly retouch their skin without looking “fake,” she said.
The question was: “How can I link the virtual beauty with the real world beauty?” Chang recalled. “I believe if you let [the] user try more, they will buy more.”

That hypothesis has carried the company forward on its pitch to brands, even as popular consumer platforms such as Instagram offer similar filtering technology.

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Taiwan's latest entrant to Wall Street has had a rough ride since it went public a week ago.

Shares of Perfect Corp., a software company that allows users to virtually try on makeup or jewelry from brands such as Estée Lauder, LVMH and Shiseido, have fallenmore than 40% from their listing price since they began trading on the New York Stock Exchange a week ago.

Perfect Corp. lends its technology to beauty and fashion brands. It uses augmented reality and artificial intelligence to help users test products online before they buy them.

The firm's valuation rose to approximately $1 billion after merging with Provident Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), days before its listing. Shares of the newly combined business began trading last Monday under the ticker symbol "PERF," and have since slid about 46% from the opening price of $15.80.

The broader S&P 500 index has lost approximately 14% in the last five days, according to data provider Refinitiv Eikon.

SPACs are shell companies with limited or no operating assets. They usually go public solely to raise money from investors that is then used to buy existing businesses.

Daniel Ives, managing director and senior equity analyst of Wedbush Securities, said investors could be cautious about Perfect Corp. because "in a risk-off market, an augmented reality play with Taiwanese roots is a glass-half-empty name."

"Tech stocks across the board have been weak and any geopolitical added risks will be a concern in this market," he told CNN Business.

Taiwan is a self-governed democratic island that the Communist leadership in Beijing has long claimed as part of its territory, despite having never ruled over it. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine this year, some foreign investors have expressed concerns over the risk that China could increase its military force against Taiwan.

Perfect Corp. said it raised approximately $119 million in the deal.

The company chose to list in the United States because much of its clientele is based there, founder and CEO Alice Chang said in an interview with CNN Business. She said that she was wearing her own "digital makeup" and virtual earrings on the video call.

Chang started Perfect Corp. in 2015 as part of a unit at Cyberlink, a tech company in Taiwan, which later spun it off as a separate business. Cyberlink continues to be one of the firm's investors, along with global brands such as Chanel, Goldman Sachs (GS) and Snap (SNAP).

Chang said the company would use the proceeds from its SPAC merger to expand in Southeast Asia, fund research and development, and double down on new capabilities of its technology, such as letting users try on accessories beyond jewelry.

"We just joined jewelry, fashion," she said. "This is just the beginning."

Perfect Corp. is part of the software-as-a-serviceindustry. The firm now has offices in cities around the world, including New York, Paris, Tokyo and Shanghai, and caters to more than 450 brands, said Chang.

It brought in $40.8 million in revenue last year, and is aiming for sales of more than $100 million by 2024, according to regulatory filings.

It all started with a selfie, according to Chang.

About nine years ago, Chang would frequently take photos of herself to share with friends and family, and often found herself wishing there was a way for users to instantly polish their appearances. The idea eventually led to a mobile app called YouCam, which allows users to instantly retouch their skin without looking "fake," she said.

The question was: "How can I link the virtual beauty with the real world beauty?" Chang recalled. "I believe if you let [the] user try more, they will buy more."

That hypothesis has carried the company forward on its pitch to brands, even as popular consumer platforms such as Instagram offer similar filtering technology.

Perfect Corp. is one of a handful of Taiwanese companies to list in the United States in recent years, according to Dealogic data.

Its arrival comes just months after Gogoro ( GGR), a Taiwanese electric scooter startup backed by Al Gore and one of Apple's biggest suppliers, had its own day on Wall Street. The company also went public in New York this April after merging with a SPAC, raising at least $335 million in cash at the time.Its shares are down 68% so far this year.

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Taiwan's virtual beauty brand struggles on Wall Street debut | CNN Business

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Taiwan's latest entrant to Wall Street has had a rough ride since it went public a week ago. Shares of Perfect Corp., a software company that allows users to virtually try on makeup or jewelry from brands such as Estée Lauder, LVMH and Shiseido, have fallenmore than 40% from their listing price since they began trading on the New York Stock Exchange a week ago.

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The gal-dem guide to every terrible bill the Tories are trying to pass this year

It's hard to keep track of every piece of horrible legislation slated for 2022 by Boris Johnson and co – so we've done it for you.

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From Digital to Physical

Adventure Awaits

Discover the Burberry x Minecraft collaboration - an in-game adventure, capsule collection and real-world experiences, each filled with creativity, exploration and self-expression. Inspired by the fast-paced in-game adventure into the unknown, the Burberry x Minecraft capsule collection fuses in-game motifs with unmistakable Burberry icons.

Inspired by the narrative of our in-game adventure, the Burberry x Minecraft capsule collection evokes our adventurous spirit and embodies our affinity for the natural world and the limitless potential for adventure it holds.

Animated with florals, foliage and landscape graphics, the designs fuse Burberry icons such as The Heritage Trench Coat and House Check with Minecraft motifs, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, the digital and the physical.

Search for 'Burberry: Freedom to Go Beyond' in the Minecraft Marketplace to join the fast-paced journey into the unknown. With four treacherous domains and 15 downloadable skins based on fashion, fantasy and adventure, the game reimagines journeys into nature through the power of adventure.

Burberry x Minecraft

PLAY

Burberry Open Spaces Shenzhen Bay

© 2022 Mojang AB. MINECRAFT and the MINECRAFT logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation

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Burberry x Minecraft | Burberry® Official

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From Digital to Physical Adventure Awaits Discover the Burberry x Minecraft collaboration - an in-game adventure, capsule collection and real-world experiences, each filled with creativity, exploration and self-expression. Inspired by the fast-paced in-game adventure into the unknown, the Burberry x Minecraft capsule collection fuses in-game motifs with unmistakable Burberry icons.

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If you speak French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, you know that they are sexist languages. I mention these 4 languages because I'm quite familiar with them but I suspect that the same goes for other languages that have different genders. In Italian, an unmarried woman is a zitella, an unmarried man is a scapolo. The zitella is pictured as a faded and pitiful woman. The scapolo is free, content and has the world in front of him. A few weeks ago, the new edition of Treccani, Italy's historic dictionary, made a small revolution in the world of linguistics and beyond by registering the feminine form of nouns and adjectives on an equal footing with the masculine as well as abolishing gender stereotypes. Before that, the masculine form of a word always appeared before the feminine form even when, if you follow the alphabetical order typical of any dictionary, the feminine form should have been first. An easy example would be that, until a few weeks ago, bello always appeared before bella in the dictionary.

Roberte Larousse performance for the group show Continuer Sans Accepter, 2022. Photo: Luce Moreau for Lab GAMERZ

Roberte Larousse, Wikifémia. Visualisation of the network around article Madeleine Pelletier in French Wikipédia

And what about French, my mother tongue? I love French but it has a bit of an MCP aura. At school, I learnt rules that literally said "the masculine form takes precedence over the feminine form". There are many debates (the French love to debate about French) about the feminisation of the language but it is a slow and relentless fight. Fortunately, Roberte la Rousse has entered the arena. Roberte la Rousse - aka Cécile Babiole and Anne Laforêt - takes her name from the two most famous dictionaries of the French language: the Petit Larousse and the Petit Robert. Laforêt and Babiole feminised and brought the two competing dictionaries under one name to better dispute the binarity and machismo of the French language.

Roberte la Rousse's sharp, feminist and playful performances invite the public to ponder upon the necessary "demasculinization" of language and knowledge. The Wikifémia Révisions performance, for example, proposes to review and update our knowledge of women who have shaped our understanding of gender but also to rectify that knowledge by pointing out biases in Wikipedia articles and making the necessary corrections or additions. Roberte LaRousse selected women belonging to different times in history, currents of thought and practices: Françoise d'Eaubonne, Annie Sprinkle, Monique Wittig, Nnedi Okorafor, Ni una menos, George Sand, Virginia Woolf, the Guerrilla Girls, etc.

Roberte la Rousse recently performed Wikifémia - Révisions at Continuing without accepting, a collective exhibition curated by Lab GAMERZ at Chapelle Venel in Aix-en-Provence. The tile of the show alludes to the cookies popping-up on our screens every day to give us an illusion of autonomy and privacy in a technological universe where we are both target and product. The artworks in the show manipulate languages to push against the commodification of internet activities and experiment with strategies to reconnect with the promises of the early days of the internet: emancipation, experimentation, sharing of knowledge and know-how.

Roberte Larousse performance for the group show Continuer Sans Accepter, 2022. Photo: Luce Moreau for Lab GAMERZ

Roberte Larousse performance for the group show Continuer Sans Accepter, 2022. Photo: Luce Moreau for Lab GAMERZ

I didn't get to see the show, alas! but I did get to interview the artists. Roberte la Rousse systematically speaks FrançaiSE, that is to say entirely à la féminine. I translated our conversation in a way that will hopefully reflect their observations and approach:
Bonjour Roberte la Rousse! When I emailed you to ask for an interview, I was full of enthusiasm. A moment later, I remembered that my blog is in English, a language that is mostly non-gendered and I realised it would be tricky to convey precisely what Roberte la Rousse does. How would you describe your work to an audience whose main language doesn't embody such a deep layer of sexism?
In French, just like in other Latin languages, gender is omnipresent since all common nouns have a gender (the sun, the armchair are masculine, the moon, the chair are feminine...) which extends to determiners, adjectives, pronouns, past participles with which they agree. Besides, the neutral takes the form of the masculine in French. Thus the masculine imposes itself, against all logic, in expressions such as: Quelle heure est-il? (What time is "he"?) instead of: Quelle heure est-elle? (What time is "she"?) which would be the expected form since the word heure (hour) is feminine. Finally, the Académie Française established, in the 17th Century, the primacy of the masculine over the feminine: "the masculine always prevails over the feminine", on the pretext that "the masculine gender being the most noble, it must predominate when masculine and feminine are found together" wrote the academician Vaugelas in 1647. Here is an example given by Michèle Causse (one of the most virulent writers against the kidnapping of the language by men): une femme et trois cochons sont entrés (masculine plural) dans la pièce (a woman and three pigs entered in room), dix femmes et un cochon sont entrés (masculine plural) dans la pièce (ten women and a pig entered the room.) The names of noble professions only exist in the masculine, for example philosophe, médecin (philosopher, doctor)... And in general, the feminine is pejorative, a sign of a deep misogyny of the French language. Thus, un professionnel (masculine form of a professional) is someone who knows his job well, une professionnelle (feminine form of a professional) is a prostitute; un couturier (masculine) is a fashion designer, une couturière (feminine) is a seamstress; un sorcier is a magician, une sorcière is a witch, an ugly and mean old woman...

In order to counter this sexism deeply enshrined in the French language, Roberte la Rousse decided to express herself in a language that eliminates all masculine form, by systematically replacing them with feminine forms. Our goal is not so much to feminize the language as to abolish gender altogether. Thus, in the language of Roberte la Rousse, there are not two or three genders but only one which takes the grammatical form of the feminine, since you have to choose a form. We called this language la française (feminine French).

Roberte la Rousse
Anne Laforet is a researcher and Cécile Babiole is a visual artist. What made you decide to ally and work on the theme of language, gender and technology?
We founded the Roberte la Rousse collective in 2016, but we have known each other since the early 2000s, our friendship was born from a common interest in arts and technology. It was the era of net art (Anne Laforet wrote her thesis on the subject) and the beginning of real-time signal processing software (that Cécile Babiole used in her installations and performances). For the past ten years, language has been a recurring theme in Cécile Babiole's artistic work ( Spell, Word Distributor or Vocabulary Lesson and many other pieces.) while Anne Laforet is interested in gender issues (she was an active member of the Parisian feminist queer hackerspace Reset from 2018 to 2020). And it is quite naturally that we decided to work together by crossing our favourite themes: language, gender, technology.
I'm curious about the technological aspect of your work. What roles does technology play in language today? How does it affect the masculinisation (or de-masculinisation) of a language like french?

The masculinisation of the French language took place at two key moments in history. First, in the 17th century, with the sexist rules enacted by the Académie Française and more recently from the 2000s onwards with the massive use of artificial intelligence in the automatic processing of language which leads to systematisation of sexist biases in the language.

Indeed, AI algorithms learn from big data, that is to say from considerable quantities of linguistic samples taken both from Wikipedia and from posts on social networks. These technologies are not based on grammar rules laid down a priori but on usage which means that they convey, transmit and reinforce stereotypes coming from the Internet. This phenomenon is obvious with the digital tools used daily on the Internet, such as search engines or automatic translation software, which systematically favour the masculine to the detriment of the feminine and men to the detriment of women. Thus, on Google Translate, la cheffe d'orchestre (female form of "the conductor") is translated into Spanish by el conductor, that is to say the male conductor, and the nurse by la enfermera, that is to say the female nurse, passing on the prevailing social stereotypes.

Roberte Larousse, Wikifémia. Visualisation of the network around article Katherine Johnson in French Wikipédia
If I understood correctly, you wrote an algorithm that replaces masculine words with words in feminine form. Did working with the algorithm reveal something about the French language that you didn't expect?
In our texts, the radical elimination of any mark of the masculine highlights, on the contrary, how much the French language is masculinised.

In order to preserve the intelligibility of la française (feminine form of le français, the French language), we have devised a very simple general rule of demasculinisation. It consists in systematically replacing the masculine form of a word with the feminine form existing in current French, whatever they are grammatically or semantically. We say la livre (instead of le livre, the book), une texte (instead of un texte, a text), une homme (instead of un homme, a man), pas de la toute (instead of pas du tout, not at all)... We have added the present and past participles: we walk en chantante (instead of en chantant, we walk singing) or a votée (instead of a voté, voted.) The result sounds a little weird. But it is precisely this oddity that interests us. Our automatic translation script sometimes leads to literary finds or funny turns of phrase that we wouldn't have thought of otherwise: la boulotte (which translates into "the dumpy one") instead of le boulot (the job) or la fine (the slim one) instead of la fin (the end), the sentence vous n'aurez pas le culot d'élire un homme à nouveau ("you won't have the nerve to elect a man again") becomes vous n'aurez pas la culotte d'élire une homme à nouvelle ("you won't have the panties to elect a man of short stories!")
In Wikifémia - Révisions, you read Wikipedia entries of women or feminist collectives that you comment, correct and review. Do you also intervene directly inside the wikipedia platform? How different are Wikifémia - Révisions from the Wikipedia Edit-a-thons where people meet for several hours or days to edit or complete wikipedia and increase the presence of women scientists, activists or artists in the platform?
Wikifémia is an artistic project that proposes a re-reading of Wikipedia from a feminist perspective. We create stories based on articles found in the French version of Wikipedia devoted to women or groups of women. We select excerpts from articles that we arrange, comment on and translate into la française. Wikifémia is an independent project of Wikipedia.

In addition, we participated in many Edit-a-thons organised by les sans pagEs (an association of French-speaking Wikipedians who work to bridge the gender gap in the encyclopaedia) during which we learnt to contribute but above all discovered the behind-the-scenes of Wikipedia. We were able to observe the many biases present in the encyclopaedia (biases of gender but also of race or class) and this fed our artistic project.

With Wikifémia, we were interested in different themes: the place of women in computer science, activists for universal suffrage and reproductive rights, and personalities who influenced us (writers, artists, activists.) We have actively contributed to Wikipedia on these topics.
What kind of feedback do you get from the audience? French speakers tend to have a possessive and ultra-conservative relationship with their language. They don't like it to be simplified, they don't like discussions to make it more inclusive, etc. How do they react to your work? Do men experience it differently than women for example?
And has the feedback you have received from the public ever influenced your practice withRoberte la Rousse?
The public of our performance seems to appreciate our texts in "française" and the touches of humour that pop up here and there. But it is true that some spectators, mostly men, can be irritated by our approach, they are the same ones who refuse any spelling reform or any borrowing from the other languages spoken in France and defend the conservative conception of a "pure" and frozen language.

A recurring question comes up when we discuss with the audience, that of comparing la française with inclusive language, that is to say a language that tries not to exclude anyone (for example, instead of a generic masculine tous (all) the inclusive language says tous et toutes or toustes or tou⋅tes with a midpoint). This question from the public allows us to take stock of our practice. La française and inclusive language are not to be placed on the same level. We are not trying to impose a new linguistic standard on French speakers, we want to offer an artistic, that is to say symbolic, work on the language.

The consequence of our choice is to bring out the massive masculinisation of patriarchal French and create a strange language with poetic accents (probably difficult to perceive for non-French speakers). In contrast, in life, we welcome all forms of inclusive language.

Wikifémia - langue, genre, technologies, UV éditions, 2022
Roberte la Rousse recently published Wikifémia - langue, genre, technologies (Publisher: UV éditions), a book that not only presents (and comments on) the biographies of remarkable women but also argues that a de-masculinisation of both language and knowledge is necessary. Why is this de-masculinisation so important? How does a language with a heavy patriarchal burden affect women and society in general?
The thesis underlying our thinking is that language is not neutral, words are not transparent labels. On the contrary, language is an ideological construction shaped by the dominant groups, it conveys values which shape reality and are imposed on all speakers. When children are born and learn to speak, the language is already there, it is not only a communication tool, but an environment in which they are immersed and which builds the world without their knowledge.

However, it is clear that women are mistreated in French, a language that conveys a consistent contempt for women and the feminine. It is therefore essential to work on language since it conditions thought and the vision of the world and of society. Under these conditions, proposing a demasculinisation of the language, which "sabotages" the dominant discourse, constitutes a tool for raising awareness and for fighting against patriarchy.

In terms of knowledge, Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites in the world, just after Google and Facebook. Its significance as a distributor and producer of knowledge is thus considerable. This is why it is important to scrutinise its biases, but also to question its pseudo-neutrality. The knowledge produced by minoritised communities (women, racialised people, the Global South, gender dissidents, etc.) is under-represented. This is what inspired us to write Wikifemia.

Cécile Babiole, La Berte typography, 2021
The work of Roberte la Rousse is about language, gender and algorithms but it also has a strong visual dimension. Can you describe the aesthetic elements of RLR? The way you use colours (you wear pink during the performances for example), fonts or the info visualisation you use in the Wikifémia- Madeleine Pelletier performances?
The visual identity of Roberte la Rousse is developed by Cécile Babiole who created the collective's logo (printed on the T-shirts worn by the artists during the performances) as well as an original typeface, La Berte, used for the titles of the book Wikifémia, langue, genre, technologie (UV editions, April 2022).

La Berte consists of a composition of two emblematic typographies used by the two dictionaries Le Petit Larousse illustré and Le Petit Robert. The graphic principle adopted is to cut out the glyphs by making the assembly visible.

To highlight our working protocol during the Wikifémia - Madeleine Pelletier and Wikifémia - Computer Grrrls performances, we have developed interactive maps that make visible the links between Wikipedia articles dedicated to women.
What is next for RLR? Any upcoming project, event or field of research you could share with us?
We continue to present Wikifemia, and we are thinking about our next project.
Merci, thank you Anne and Cécile!

Roberte la Rousse recently performed for the collective exhibition Continuer sans accepter, organised by Lab GAMERZ in the context of A 5th Season - Aix-en-Provence Art and Culture Biennial

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Talking Wikifémia, algorithm and sexist language. An interview with Roberte la Rousse

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If you speak French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, you know that they are sexist languages. I mention these 4 languages because I'm quite familiar with them but I suspect that the same goes for other languages that have different genders. In Italian, an unmarried woman is a zitella, an unmarried man is a scapolo.

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What are the major challenges you're facing, and why?

NR: The climate crisis is the biggest one in my mind. We're running towards a point where we'll soon cause irreparable and immeasurable harm to many communities and species around the world. Some of the damage is coming from citizens and what we're choosing to buy and how we're choosing to live. Most of it is coming from companies and industries who are intent on making the most amount of money they can as soon as they can regardless of the wider impact of their actions - and that includes many companies in our industry. Basically, our economy is set against our sustainability. Creativity can't solve this but it can play its part and be a more responsible industry, pushing the wrong kinds of consumption less, pushing the right kinds of consumption more, calling out the villains, bringing down the deniers, raising the heroes and change-makers, helping to design a more positive future.

NR: The climate is not the only challenge right now. There's the question of diversity and ensuring that our studio and creative department compositions and outputs are as rich and varied as the society they're part of. There's also the question of opportunities for next-generation creative talent who are facing a pandemic-induced recession which, let's face it, won't be helped by the wonderful idea called Brexit. I've been discussing how to approach these issues with D&AD's team and trustees including last year's president Kate Stanners and next year's president Rebecca Wright. Forgive the horrible phrase, but there are no silver bullets to any of them. But keeping them top of mind, bringing in some expert provocations, discussing the subjects properly and letting younger creative talent into those conversations too - all of that strikes me as a pretty good process.

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A New Angle: Naresh Ramchandani is using his latest role to push for a more responsible industry

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What are the major challenges you're facing, and why? NR: The climate crisis is the biggest one in my mind. We're running towards a point where we'll soon cause irreparable and immeasurable harm to many communities and species around the world.

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By tackling the digital skills gap, This Is How helps young people take their first steps into the creative industry

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Founded by Nominet and Livity, the platform provides a podcast series, career quiz, educational content and inspirational stories from creatives who have landed their dream jobs.