Internet

How did the internet become so horrific?

17 February 2024 9:00 am

Plus: the joy of hearing lawyers argue

The problem with being anti-woke

12 July 2022 3:00 pm

I’m going to do something that will likely annoy you, dear reader: I am going to make an argument about a…

Is Twitter about to step up its censorship?

3 December 2021 3:21 am

Farewell then @jack. Jack Dorsey’s departure from Twitter on Monday came as no surprise given that the firm Elliott Management,…

The toxic side-effect of the Trump Twitter ban

19 January 2021 1:33 am

Almost two weeks on from the storming of the US Capitol it’s becoming plainer that the most substantive changes to…

Trump vs Twitter: the battle begins

29 May 2020 5:36 pm

When Tony Wang, general manager of Twitter in the UK, described the company as the ‘free speech wing of the…

Are there ways in which virtual exhibitions are better than real ones?

4 April 2020 9:00 am

Six months ago I published a book about travelling to look at works of art. One such journey involved a…

A great example of how Radio 4 is using new technologies to enhance audio

9 March 2019 9:00 am

‘It’s too familiar, too obvious,’ says Cathy FitzGerald at the beginning of her new interactive series for Radio 4, Moving…

The Kafkaesque nightmare of cancelling my BT broadband

12 January 2019 9:00 am

Oh, I suppose I might as well give it a whirl, I thought, as the recorded voice began its dirge:…

Technology wastes as much time as it saves

8 December 2018 9:00 am

I have just spent a weekend planning a family trip to Chennai and Hyderabad. Since some of the flights are…

Explained: Why you’ll never understand memes

8 September 2018 9:00 am

Boy and I have been driving the Fawn mad by singing the ‘Johny Johny Yes Papa’ song. It goes (roughly…

Word of the week: dot

31 March 2018 9:00 am

With the sensation produced by hearing one’s name, I jumped when I saw mine on a poster advertising an Amazon…

The vlogging fantasy that bewitches our children

24 March 2018 9:00 am

My friend’s ten-year-old daughter has a new hobby. Like many of her school pals, she hopes to become a video…

It’s not all Twitter mobs – the internet can be a force for good

3 March 2018 9:00 am

Few readerships of any intelligent national magazine will be more alive to the perils and downsides of 21st–century cyber-life than…

The joy of YouTube is that the content created is content-free

24 February 2018 9:00 am

None of us is above YouTube, and nothing is beneath it. We have of course all long since submitted to…

Compulsory subtitles? I read ‘em and weep

6 January 2018 9:00 am

Subtitles are taking over the world. It’s increasingly rare these days for a video clip to be free of those…

The inventions (and Welsh rarebit mix) that will change your life

2 December 2017 9:00 am

At last. And just what you’ve been waiting for. The official Wiki Man guide to the best gadgets and gizmos…

Letters

21 October 2017 9:00 am

The great divider Sir: Niall Ferguson (‘Tech vs Trump’, 14 October) draws a parallel between the Reformation — powered by the…

A choice of first novels

5 August 2017 9:00 am

Remember Douglas Coupland? Remember Tama Janowitz? Remember Lisa St Aubin de Terán? Banana Yoshimoto? Françoise Sagan? The voice of your…

The right kind of dumbing down

29 July 2017 9:00 am

Thanks to meteoric advances in computational power, it is now possible to take abundant data from a wide range of…

The internet’s war on free speech

14 May 2016 9:00 am

The web was meant to empower us all. Right now, it’s empowering censors

Online feedback frenzy is killing the art of complaint

26 March 2016 9:00 am

Internet surveys have killed the art of complaint

What happened when my son went to school as Goldilocks

12 March 2016 9:00 am

Whenever I hear a leftie complain about being abused on Twitter, I think: ‘You should try being me.’ A case…

What do all these evil maniacs have in common?

5 March 2016 9:00 am

More bad publicity for the Islamic State’s ‘Kafir Tiny Tots and Babycare Service’. A burka-clad madwoman wandering through the streets…

Why the World Service is worth every penny

5 March 2016 9:00 am

What makes the World Service so different from the rest of the BBC? I asked Mary Hockaday, the controller of…

Here’s how I would deal with the dorks who spread lies online

27 February 2016 9:00 am

One reason I do not tweet, text, use Facebook or Instagram, and only wield a mobile when a landline is…