The internet is a force multiplier for Ukraine

In his Platformer newsletter, Casey Newton shares notes on the role of platforms in wartime — and asks whether they may have a role to play in preserving democracy in Ukraine.

Over the past decade, the biggest tech companies came to feel less like traditional corporations and more like quasi-states: borderless empires whose decisions increasingly had geopolitical consequences, to the growing frustration of the nation states in which they operate. … [I]t has been striking, watching the horrific invasion of Ukraine that Vladimir Putin’s Russia began on Thursday, the degree to which social networks have been used in efforts to preserve democracy.

Submitted by jboy (via)