01.10, 17:00–18:00 (Europe/Berlin), ADA
Sprache: Englisch
Digital technologies accelerate political and social processes and leave little room for deliberative discourse. At the same time, state actors who should exert informational and regulatory influence often outsource their capacities and services to these companies, withholding public sector data and information from citizens. How can the DSA be advanced?
The infamous Cambridge Analytica case illustrates: powerful corporations like Meta pose a major threat to democracy. The digital public space is organized by corporations to which the state grants a lot of control. These corporations are fiercely focused on profit maximization and lack public transparency. Fake news, hate speech and manipulation flourish in so-called "social media." Their algorithms promote "echo chambers" in which like-minded people spiral into ever more extreme views. Meta and Google endanger independent media that work with journalistic standards and whose business model is collapsing. Digital technologies accelerate political and social processes and leave little room for deliberative discourse. At the same time, state actors who should exert informational and regulatory influence often outsource their capacities and services to these companies, withholding public sector data and information from citizens. The EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) aims to empower users to decide what content they are exposed to. It is a first step, but it does not yet go far enough. How can the DSA be advanced? This strand also raises questions about viable platform alternatives that value and implement aspects such as data protection, transparency or open source, and about the role of the state as an enabler or impediment to democratic discourse in this domain.
Zara Rahman is a Berlin-based researcher and writer whose interests lie at the intersection of power, technology and justice. Over the past decade, her work has focused on supporting the responsible use of data and technology in advocacy and social justice, working with activists from around the world to support context-driven and thoughtful uses of tech and data. She has held fellowships with the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford University; digitalHKS at the Harvard Kennedy School; and Data & Society. She serves on the Board of Saheli, a UK-based non-profit providing support and refuge to women of colour fleeing domestic abuse, and on the Advisory Boards of A People’s Guide to Tech, and Mnemonic. She most recently served as Interim Executive Director at The Engine Room, and currently works as a freelance consultant.
Jillian C. York is a writer and activist whose work examines the impact of technology on our societal and cultural values. Based in Berlin, she is the Director for International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a fellow at the Center for Internet & Human Rights at the European University Viadrina, a visiting professor at the College of Europe Natolin, and the author of Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism (Verso 2021).