It is easy to forget that for a long time – long before Google and Facebook went head-to-head with the Australian government last month – there wasn’t a proven business model for the internet.

The COVID-19 crisis has confirmed, yet again, the importance of broad access to clear, reliable, and accurate information.

Facebook on Monday said it is ramping up efforts to stem the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, spread facts, and figure out who might be wary of getting the jab.The move includes banning groups that repeatedly spread misinformation and debunked claims about the virus and vaccines in general.The leading social network has been highlighting health advice from reliable agencies and removing COVID-19 misinformation for months and on Monday expanded that initiative.A list of debunk

Tens of thousands of protesters poured onto the streets across Myanmar Sunday in the biggest anti-coup rallies yet, as an internet blackout failed to stifle growing outrage at the military's ouster of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.Some estimates put the number of protesters in Yangon at 100,000 and there were reports of large demonstrations in other cities condemning the coup that brought Myanmar's 10-year experiment with democracy to a crashing halt.Backed by a din of car horns,

Myanmar saw its largest anti-coup protests yet on Saturday with young demonstrators spilling on to the streets to denounce the country's new military regime, despite a nationwide internet blackout aimed at stifling a growing chorus of popular dissent.Soon before nearly all lines of communication in and out of the country went dark, an Australian advisor to ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi told media he had been detained.The shutdown did not stop thousands of demonstrators from gat

Facebook and Google are fast becoming "human rights-free zones" in Vietnam, Amnesty International warned Tuesday, accusing the tech titans of helping censor peaceful dissent and political expression in the country.Communist Vietnam has long jailed its critics but has come under fire in recent years for targeting users on Facebook, a popular forum for activists in the country where all independent media is banned.The social network admitted earlier this year that it was blocking cont

Social media, digital media, collaborative platforms and the like, have become an essential facet and feature in many democratic societies.

Facebook said Tuesday it would file a legal challenge against a Thai government order to take down a group where pro-democracy activists held discussions about the monarchy, a taboo subject in the country.A growing tide of youth-led protests has swept Thailand in recent weeks - buoyed by anger against what many regard as an illegitimate, military-aligned government and an overly powerful royal family.The private Facebook group, called "Royalist Marketplace", was created in April and

E-commerce is big business in Southeast Asia. Digital consumers in ASEAN will be spending three times as much in 2025 according to a 2019 study from Facebook and Bain & Company. The report found that while consumers in Southeast Asia spent US$125 on average on online purchases in 2018, that sum is expected to more than triple to US$390 in 2025.Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been implemented in many major industries since the term was first coined in the 1950s.

Four years ago, Kenneth Rogoff, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), made a powerful case for phasing out paper money.