InDrive wanted to make ride-hailing fairer. Drivers say it has made them poorer

The company overtook Careem to dominate ride-hailing in Pakistan, but drivers say they're underpaid and overworked. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 2 years ago

A one-man news outlet is offering a critical voice in Hong Kong

Lam Yin-pong on starting a news platform based on social media amid tightening censorship. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 2 years ago

Ride-hailing unions in Africa are struggling for traction

Drivers’ unions in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and Tanzania say they’re no match for companies like Uber, Bolt, and inDrive. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 2 years ago

Signal President Meredith Whittaker on resisting government threats to privacy

The encrypted messaging app is on the front lines of battles over encryption in India, Russia, and Iran. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 2 years ago

A deadly fire was falsely blamed on EV charging. Now gig riders can’t plug in

Hanoi building owners latched onto misinformation around the cause of the fatal blaze and banned EV riders from using their chargers. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 2 years ago

China’s favorite resale app is a youth subculture hot spot

The e-commerce platform has also become a forum for fandoms and birthed a unique style of confessional item listings. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 2 years ago

China’s livestream shopping bubble is popping

Faced with salary cuts, long working hours, and grueling competition, China’s livestream sellers question their job prospects in a saturated industry. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 2 years ago

How Silicon Valley missed the next wave of e-commerce

There are lots of exciting retail companies — just not in the U.S. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 2 years ago

An end of an era for Latin American tech

Foreign businesses are making strides in the region while local tech companies reshuffle. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 2 years ago

The World’s Last Internet Cafes

Rest of World visits some of the last remaining cafes in Uganda, Nepal, Nigeria, Mexico, Argentina, and Hong Kong # | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 2 years ago

Rest of World talks to outsourced workers forced to adopt generative AI to stay competitive

they commissioned work made with and without AI from freelancers in Nigeria, Mexico, China, and the Philippines # | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 2 years ago

The most used languages on the internet

“Millions of non-native English speakers and non-English speakers are stuck using the web in a language other than the one they were born into.” #Technology [Link] | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 2 years ago

Inside the world’s biggest tech bazaars

You can tell a lot about a big city from its electronics district(s) — its technological peaks and troughs, consumer culture, demographic quirks, entrepreneurial spirit. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

AI-generated art sparks furious backlash from Japan’s anime community

Dall-E might be the hot new thing, but outside Silicon Valley, fear and outrage are ramping up. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Why does India’s Cowin app keep sending fake vaccination certificates?

Experts say that fake vaccine certificates are being processed intentionally in order to boost the official vaccination figures. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

The Wire vs. Meta: Reporting on Instagram moderation led to a public fight

The Indian publication has withdrawn its stories, saying it will review the allegedly leaked documents after the social media giant complained about fabrication of sources. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

The Return of the Lipstick King

When China’s top livestreaming salesman, Austin Li, vanished over a tank-shaped ice cream cake, many fans thought he was gone for good. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Rest of World’s favorite international films and TV shows

From Bollywood blockbusters to reality TV, we round up the shows and films you need to watch next. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

How Chinese citizens use puns to get past internet censors

Chinese social media companies and users are locked in a never-ending battle between free speech and censorship. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Colombia banned the iPhone 14. Apple says it will sell it anyway

A lawsuit by Ericsson prevents Apple from selling 5G devices in the country, but a recent press release suggests the company is moving ahead. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Chinese apps are climbing Indian download charts after bans

Rest of World found at least eight of India’s 100 most-downloaded free apps to be from Chinese companies like ByteDance, Xiaomi, Alibaba, and Joyy. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Indonesians are siding with a hacker who exposed 1.3B SIM card details

Breaches are so common in Indonesia that citizens jokingly call it an “open-source country.” | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

WhatsApp is now a spammers’ paradise in India

Revenue pressures forced WhatsApp to turn to e-commerce, and now the company is contending with a plague of spammers. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Coding in a War Zone

Displacement, attacks, and air raid alerts are daily life for Ukraine’s disrupted tech workforce. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Agents teaching TikTok livestreamers how to earn tips

ByteDance is partnering with agencies to cultivate an ecosystem of livestreamers paid with audience tips. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

How to prepare for a blackout during a hurricane

An electronic survival guide, with valuable lessons from a days-long power outage in Cuba. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Central America’s first metaverse is off to a bad start

Platzeeland’s followers now worry that their investment may be in jeopardy. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

$620 HIV diagnosis: Russians buy themselves out of military service on Telegram

The platform has given rise to a robust cottage industry helping Russian men avoid mobilization. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Japan struggles to give up floppy disks and fax machines for the digital age

The tricky task falls to Kono Taro, Japan’s maverick tech crusader | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

TikTok creators condensing Hollywood films into minutes and getting mil of views

With machine translation, dubbing apps, and VPNs, Chinese creators are shortening movies for Americans. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Why India’s small sellers still don’t trust Amazon

Despite the platform's years-long efforts to woo small retailers and traders, many still suspect Amazon of unfair practices. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Snap shuts down Zenly instead of selling it, fearing competition

Fearing competition, Snap decided to shut down Zenly rather than sell it. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Unauthorized Shein boutiques are popping up across Mexico

Customers get a similar experience from buying on the app, but what they most want is the human touch. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Russia's war on Wikipedia

One Friday in March, not long after Russia invaded Ukraine, Mikhail, a Russia-based Wikipedia editor, opened the Telegram app to discover that he had been doxxed. His personal information, including his name and social media accounts, had been posted in a channel run by a group o … | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Beijing will regulate ‘digital humans’ in the metaverse and beyond

China's capital is looking to set standards for digital assistants, virtual influencers and gaming avatars. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Chinese brands that lead India’s smartphone market being hounded by authorities

As many as 119 bank accounts of Vivo India have been frozen, while Oppo India has been accused of avoiding taxes worth $551 million. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Overrun by influencers, historic sites are banning TikTok creators in Nepal

Prominent tourist and religious sites in Nepal are putting up “No TikTok” signs to keep creators from shooting at the premises. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Next generation play-to-earn games are here. Gamers are still skeptical

In the wake of Axie Infinity’s decline, a Brazilian gaming powerhouse is trying to build the next generation of play-to-earn. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

The overworked humans behind China’s virtual influencers

Hidden behind the perfect faces of China's $16 billion virtual celebrity industry is an angry, overworked labor force. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Fleeing Putin, Russian tech workers find a home in Armenia

“If Russia wins, everything in Russia will be bad. If Russia loses, everything will still be bad. I see no sense in returning there.” | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Rappi mafia: How a delivery startup took over Colombia’s tech scene

The Colombian unicorn's alumni are outpacing the PayPal mafia in startup creation. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Argentina looked to crypto when crisis hit after market hours

But eager speculators overpaid for stablecoins, as the peso failed to crash as they’d expected. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

App jeopardizing livelihood of 82 mil Indian rural workers

Poor connectivity and an English-only interface make the app unusable for many who rely on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

Tech rescued Sri Lanka’s tanking tourism industry

The country's economic crisis left around 400,000 people jobless in Sri Lanka. Tech is increasingly filling the void. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

In Sri Lanka, Instagram has become a shop front for goods including live seafood

“When I gave crabs to my friends, they loved it, so I decided to sell them on social media.” | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

How Football shirts chart the rise and fall of tech giants

Sponsoring a football club is about more than just advertising, it's a status symbol. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

The US company behind a volunteer crypto community in Venezuela

These “Reserve rangers” are fighting for financial autonomy in their embattled country. But their community isn’t as decentralized as they think. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago

DALL·E mini has a mysterious obsession with women in saris

The images represent a glitch in the system that even its creator can't explain. | Continue reading


@restofworld.org | 3 years ago