CIRC 2023

Digital Asia Hub hosted the 20th anniversary instance of the Chinese Internet Research Conference (CIRC), a global network for emerging and senior academics studying digital life in China. This year, the Hub took on the mantle as CIRC organiser, partnering with The Faculty of Mass Communication at Chiang Mai University as local hosts. The focus was on the Chinese[…]

Interview with Haiqing Yu: Automated Decision Making in China & Researching “Global China”

Professor Haiqing Yu teaches at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. She researches the sociopolitical and economic impact of China’s digital media, communication and culture on China, Australia and the Asia Pacific. Haiqing is also a member of the 20th annual China Internet Research Conference‘s steering committee, hosted by Digital Asia Hub and held July 12-14,[…]

A Year in Review: 2022 at the Hub

In 2022, The Hub has continued on with and kickstarted a number of projects focused on the intersection of technology and society in the Asia Pacific region. As we wrap up this year, we’ve selected some highlights to share with you from completed projects as well as ways to get involved in ongoing ones. Earlier[…]

Meet Nayantara & the Ranking Digital Rights project

Digital Asia Hub has been partnering with Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) to advance corporate accountability in South-East and East-Asia by ranking selected corporate actors for their commitments to human rights. With much of the digital public sphere mediated by corporate technology businesses, it is imperative to understand how their business models square with consequences for human rights. Towards[…]

Data Sovereignty in Action: Ant Group and Didi Chuxing Case Studies

The global economy is undergoing a transformation widely recognized as the 4th industrial revolution made possible by data driven intelligent systems. Policy makers around the world are searching for new regulatory and governance frameworks to help societies manage the potential and risks these new systems bring to society. China is at the forefront of this[…]

Shifting Sands for Tech Governance in China

2020 was a year of extreme highs and lows for the fortunes of technology platforms in China. From the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic they were central to sustaining economic activity during lockdown and maintaining a ‘new normal’ as the country re-opened. Their dominance over life in China seemed emphatic. By the end of the[…]

Who Believed in COVID-19 Conspiracies in China?

As COVID-19 quickly spread throughout the world since January 2020, the uncertainty concerning the origins and features of the virus provided a fertile ground for misinformation and conspiracy theories to thrive. Different from those popular COVID-19 conspiracy narratives in the West, on Chinese social media the conspiracies that gained traction were ones that faulted the[…]

Not At Home: Resisting ‘home’ as a natural space of refuge

  As the news of the pandemic confirmed the reality of the health crises pandemic, we all turned square, sitting in rectangles that frame our faces, as we work from home. ‘Shelter in Place’[1] became the rallying call, offering the home as a retreat, a refuge, a fortress of solitude where we defy the Covid-19[…]

Australia: A poor model for QR data ‘attendance tracking’

In Australia, two main technologies have been used for COVID-19 contact tracing: a Bluetooth-based proximity tracking app, and QR Codes to assist tracking of those attending venues or events. They take radically different approaches to the protection of privacy, including that the first is voluntary, the second is (in effect) compulsory. Effective contact tracing is[…]

Pandemic strengthens China’s platforms as infrastructure providers

After strict lockdown measures went into place in China, nearly all commercial activity shifted online. E-commerce expanded its reach in the form of rural live-streaming (村播): farmers-turned-online-hosts selling fresh produce and the nostalgia of the countryside to tens of millions of urban consumers glued to their smartphones at home. The exchange is simple. Using apps[…]