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Walking the Precipice: Reforming Ukraine through International Pressure

“Ukraine stands at the forefront of the battle between authoritarianism and liberal democracy. The country’s commitment and capacity to progress towards self-reliance are hampered by an ongoing two-front war—against Russia’s full scale aggression on the one hand, and against its internal legacy of corruption on the other.” —USAID 1/13/2020

Image of Volodymyr Zelensky

By Lidia Powirska

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Bankrolling Ethics: Do Tech Investors Have a Responsibility to Protect Democracy?

Are fake news and the misuse of personal data just unintended consequences of a new technology? Scholars Sandra Goh and Jack Loveridge believe tech investors have an ethical imperative to head off potential harms to democracy early on.

Image of a sign with the words "we are not fake news" written on the back

By Sandra Goh and Jack Loveridge

New startups are launching innovative technologies with the potential to transform democracies around the world, often in foreseeable ways. Always looking toward the future, early investors in new tech should work to infuse a startup’s business model with an ethical outlook that upholds democratic values. For a case in point, look no further than the recent history of a humble dorm room startup that attained a remarkable global reach: Facebook. 

It’s now been over a year since CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivered his much-publicized testimony before the US Senate’s Commerce and Judiciary Committees. Since then, in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal—in which data from 87 million user profiles were made available to third party developers seeking to influence the 2016 US presidential election and the UK’s Brexit referendum—his company has struggled to reassure the world of its good intentions.... Read more about Bankrolling Ethics: Do Tech Investors Have a Responsibility to Protect Democracy?