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The public sphere needs an "ecosystem of trust" which could set out objectives of re-usage of data for the common good while protecting individual rights. This study analyses the emerging models of data governance through the lenses of science and technology studies (STS), critical data studies (CDS), and institutional economics, investigating which data governance model creates conditions for data stewardship guided by European values and rights. We critically examine two prominent, yet highly arguable, paradigms related to data, asserting that the systemic level of data assemblage must be re-conceptualised to reject the data-as-a-commodity view and take public interest into consideration. For data stewardship to achieve its goals, it is necessary to consider the inherent properties of data as commons, in the sense of a common-pool resources (CPR) framework. Therefore, we point towards public data commons as the model that is best suited to secure European rights and values while increasing data sharing at the same time. The design of such public data commons is the challenge of our time.

Recently, development scholars have begun to study the platform economy. In Latin America, platformisation has resulted in the widespread reorganisation of business practices across many sectors, with important implications for incumbent industries, labour and social processes. These changes raise questions about the potential contributions of platformisation to national economic health and social welfare. This paper argues that the link between platformisation and development can be studied from a developmental state point of view. Specifically, in Latin America, the disruptions caused by platform innovations create policy windows that could result in platform developmental policy innovations, however, developmental policy-making is constrained by the structural characteristics of Latin American economies. Taking this into consideration, the paper positions Biber et al.’s (2017) model of policy disruption, and Fairfield’s (2015) model of policy influence as tools to critically assess platform policymaking from a developmentalist point of view. This approach is illustrated through a survey and discussion of policy disruptions caused by platformisation in the transportation, lodging and fintech sectors of Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. The discussion surfaces specific challenges for platform developmentalism related to policy autonomy and capture, societal mobilisation of data and other resources, and state-market collaborations. The paper concludes by positioning the ‘platform society’ as a normative goal and offers an agenda to advance it through comparative research of platform policymaking.

The gatekeeper position of app store operators gives them the power to favour their own and the most popular applications in the rankings of search results. Based on parallels with the non-discrimination principle in the European Union's Regulation on Open Internet Access, this article formulates a list of permitted and forbidden ranking rationales for app store operators. Permitted ranking rationales include text relevance, price, quality and the legality of content. These rationales contrast with the forbidden ranking rationales, such as those based on self-favouring without objective justification and the popularity of applications, which potentially limit consumer choice and distort the digital level playing field.

This article argues that the self-management of one’s privacy is impossible due to privacy externalities. Privacy externalities are the negative by-product of the services offered by some data controllers, whereby the price to ‘pay’ for a service includes not just the provision of the user’s own personal data, but also that of others. This term, related to similar concepts from the literature on privacy such as ‘networked privacy’ or ‘data pollution’, is used here to bring to light the incentives and exploitative dynamics behind a phenomenon which, I demonstrate, benefits both the user and the data controller to the detriment of third-party data subjects. Building on these novel elements and on the relevant concepts and examples found in the existing literature, this article draws a comprehensive picture of the phenomenon, and offers two promising paths to address it—better enforcing the principle of data protection by design and by default, and relying on the framework of joint controllership.

International audience; Commons are holistic social institutions to govern the (re)production of resources, articulated through interrelated legal, socio-cultural, economic and institutional dimensions. They represent a comprehensive and radical approach to organise collective action, placing it “beyond market and state” (Bollier & Helfrich, 2012). They form a third way of organising society and the economy that differs from both market-based approaches, with their orientation toward prices, and from bureaucratic forms of organisation, with their orientation toward hierarchies and commands. This governance model has been applied to tangible and intangible resources, to local initiatives (garden, educational material), and to resources governed by global politics (climate, internet infrastructure). Digital commons are a subset of the commons, where the resources are data, information, culture and knowledge which are created and/or maintained online. The notion of the digital commons is an important concept for countering legal enclosure and fostering equitable access to these resources. This article presents the history of the movement of the digital commons, from free software, free culture, and public domain works, to open data and open access to science. It then analyses its foundational dimensions (licensing, authorship, peer production, governance) and finally studies newer forms of the digital commons, urban democratic participation and data commons.

Recently, amid growing awareness that computer algorithms are not neutral tools but can cause harm by reproducing and amplifying bias, attempts to detect and prevent such biases have intensified. An approach that has received considerable attention in this regard is the Value Sensitive Design (VSD) methodology, which aims to contribute to both the critical analysis of (dis)values in existing technologies and the construction of novel technologies that account for specific desired values. This article provides a brief overview of the key features of the Value Sensitive Design approach, examines its contributions to understanding and addressing issues around bias in computer systems, outlines the current debates on algorithmic bias and fairness in machine learning, and discusses how such debates could profit from VSD-derived insights and recommendations. Relating these debates on values in design and algorithmic bias to research on cognitive biases, we conclude by stressing our collective duty to not only detect and counter biases in software systems, but to also address and remedy their societal origins.

Speaking of "smart" technologies we may avoid the mysticism of terms like "artificial intelligence" (AI). To situate "smartness" I nevertheless explore the origins of smart technologies in the research domains of AI and cybernetics. Based in postphenomenological philosophy of technology and embodied cognition rather than media studies and science and technology studies (STS), the article entails a relational and ecological understanding of the constitutive relationship between humans and technologies, requiring us to take seriously their affordances as well as the research domain of computer science. To this end I distinguish three levels of smartness, depending on the extent to which they can respond to their environment without human intervention: logic-based, grounded in machine learning or in multi-agent systems. I discuss these levels of smartness in terms of machine agency to distinguish the nature of their behaviour from both human agency and from technologies considered dumb. Finally, I discuss the political economy of smart technologies in light of the manipulation they enable when those targeted cannot foresee how they are being profiled.

This article examines how the process of platformisation is manifesting in videogame development. Rather than reinforcing a top-down perspective of platformisation centred on distribution platforms like app stores, we focus on often overlooked game-making tools and the independent, entrepreneurial, and fringe communities that govern and use them. We draw on case studies of Unity and Twine, two such tools that have transformed videogame creation and distribution. By considering how they complicate existing understandings and definitions of both ‘platform’ and ‘platformisation’, we move beyond reductive narratives that frame platformisation as a fixed, hegemonic process. Instead, we reveal a much more ambiguous and complex relationship between game makers and the platforms they use.

Content moderation has exploded as a policy, advocacy, and public concern. But these debates still tend to be driven by high-profile incidents and to focus on the largest, US based platforms. In order to contribute to informed policymaking, scholarship in this area needs to recognise that moderation is an expansive socio-technical phenomenon, which functions in many contexts and takes many forms. Expanding the discussion also changes how we assess the array of proposed policy solutions meant to improve content moderation. Here, nine content moderation scholars working in critical internet studies propose how to expand research on content moderation, with implications for policy.

How do we come to trust, use and govern virtual private networks (VPNs)? How do these objects of the internet tack back and forth between metaphor and technical processes as they garner usership and critique? This paper aims to answer these questions by considering VPNs as boundary objects. We follow Susan Leigh Star’s (2010) call to further explore the ‘tacking’ back and forth of boundary objects as both symbolic and technical objects. This is applied within internet-space and governance-space through empirical methods that walkthrough a typical user experience for acquiring VPN services, while also offering a systemic account of the discourse that such a user would experience in coming to understand VPNs and their function.

This paper studies the efficacy of the Reddit’s quarantine, increasingly implemented in the platform as a means of restricting and reducing misogynistic and other hateful material. Using the case studies of r/TheRedPill and r/Braincels, the paper argues the quarantine successfully cordoned off affected subreddits and associated hateful material from the rest of the platform. It did not, however, reduce the levels of hateful material within the affected spaces. Instead many users reacted by leaving Reddit for less regulated spaces, with Reddit making this hateful material someone else’s problem. The paper argues therefore that the success of the quarantine as a policy response is mixed.

In April 2018 the European Commission presented an e-evidence package including a Proposal for a Regulation on a European Production and Preservation Orders for electronic evidence in criminal matters and a Proposal for a Directive on the appointment of legal representatives. The e-evidence package was accompanied by an impact assessment. This assessment asserts that e-evidence is requested in half of all investigations (first premise), that the mutual legal assistance treaties (MLAT) system is an inefficient channel for that purpose (second premise), and that as a result, two thirds of crimes cannot be effectively investigated (third premise). I challenge the empirical soundness of these three findings and argue that the percentages and figures used frame the problem fundamentally on technical and efficiency grounds. There is no reference to the political and economic motivations behind the promotion of a policy shift from MLAT to direct cooperation, which in my view, is the fourth and lost premise.

Cryptoparties (CPs) are a global movement of forums where citizens can come to learn how to improve their digital privacy and security. The present paper is one of the few empirical studies on CPs and is based on participant observation of three CPs. I demonstrate that the organisers of CPs strive for an egalitarian space for teaching and learning. Even though this goal is not always achieved, CPs might still serve as an example of citizen education in a technological society where every citizen needs to deal with complex technological issues. In addition, this paper contributes to the emerging debate on "doing internet governance", broadening our focus to include user-based and decentred practices. I argue for the political relevance of CPs showing how they enact decentred threat-scenarios to a non-expert public.

The internet is the digital reincarnation of a Greek agora or a Roman forum. It works as a “place” for public and private life. As such, it requires reliable, trustful rules to govern the daily routine of its visitors/users. The governance of the internet has gone through a significant (if not tectonic) change since its standardisation. This is clearly reflected by the changes in the concept of trust as well. Historically, trust reflected the concerns of internet users regarding the intrusion of governments into the neutral functioning of this “place”. As of now, concerns regarding trust are equally present at the macro and micro level. Trust in platforms and in the content made available through the internet is at the centre of disputes nowadays. This editorial intends to provide for a selected introduction of the macro- and micro-level aspects of trust in the system and trust in the content, including content moderation, copyright law, fake news, game-making, hateful materials, leaking, social media and VPNs.

Internet Studies scholarship tends to focus on new and hegemonic digital media, overlooking persistent uses of “older”, non-proprietary protocols and applications by some social groups who are key to configuring the nexus between technology and society. In response, we examine the contemporary political significance of using “old” social media through the empirical case of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) use. We advance a critique of platforms (closed, centralised, hegemonic social media) that we contrast with co-constructed devices that deeply involve users in their technological design and social construction. As a contemporary but long used online chat protocol, IRC serves as an important source for the critique of the currently hegemonic — but increasingly distrusted — infrastructures of computer-mediated communication. Drawing on Boltanski and Chiapello’s theory of critique and recuperation, we contrast the uses and underlying social norms of IRC with those of currently mainstream social media platforms. We claim that certain technical limitations that actors of IRC development did not feel necessary to address have kept it from incorporation into regimes of capital accumulation and social control, but also hindered its mass adoption. Ultimately, IRC continues to serve social groups key to the collaborative production of software, hardware and politics. While the general history of digital innovations illustrates the logic of critique and recuperation, our case study highlights the possibilities and pitfalls of resistance to it.

This article examines developments regarding encryption law and policy within ‘Five Eyes’ (FVEY) countries by focussing on the recently enacted Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018 (Cth) in Australia. The legislation is significant both domestically and internationally because of its extraterritorial reach, allowing the development of new ways for Australian law enforcement and security agencies to access encrypted telecommunications via transnational designated communications providers, and allowing for Australian authorities to assist foreign counterparts in both enforcing and potentially circumventing their domestic laws. We argue that Australia is the ‘weak link’ in the FVEY alliance as - unlike other FVEY members - has no comprehensive enforceable human rights protections. Given this, there is a possibility for regulatory arbitrage in exploiting these new surveillance powers to undermine encryption via Australia.

We examine and compare data and privacy governance by four China-based mobile applications and their international versions: Baidu, Toutiao and its international version TopBuzz, Douyin and its international version TikTok, and WeChat. Together, these four applications represent popular Chinese apps branching into diverse overseas markets such as Europe, Brazil, North America, and Southeast Asia. We first present an overview of the ownership, functions, business models and strategies of the reviewed apps. To study the app's interface design, we employ the walkthrough method to examine privacy features during the account registration and deletion stages in app usage. Lastly, we conducted content analysis of the terms of service and privacy policies to establish the app's data collection, storage, transfer, use, and disclosure measures. Our analysis showed variations across apps and within the Chinese and international-facing versions in their data and privacy governance in app design and policies. Baidu has the most unsatisfactory data and privacy protection measures, while ByteDance's TikTok/Douyin and TopBuzz/Toutiao offer more comprehensive user protection from different jurisdictions. Moreover, this paper highlights the role of platform owners (e.g., Google and Apple) in gatekeeping mobile app privacy standards and the role of the state in imposing a data protection framework on overseas versions of China-based mobile apps.

The rise of digital information communication technology has major implications for how states wield coercive power beyond their territorial borders through the extraterritorial geographies of data flows. In examining the geopolitics of data, transnational surveillance, and jurisdiction, this collection makes a significant contribution to the field of global internet governance. It shows how the internet is a forum for geopolitical struggle with states weaponising jurisdiction and exerting power beyond their own borders directly, and via infrastructures owned and operated by transnational technology companies. These dynamics challenge existing conceptual and theoretical categories of contemporary law across the fields of international relations, criminology, and digital media, and raise urgent questions about if and how individual rights can be protected in an era of ubiquitous transnational surveillance conducted by private companies and governments alike.

Facing the fragmentation of digital space in the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, this article considers regulatory models available to avoid the balkanisation of the internet. Considering government-led surveillance in particular, available strategies are investigated to create a trustworthy and universal digital space, based on human rights principles and values. After analysis and discussion of salient aspects of two relevant proposals, it is submitted that the lack of a common understanding of concepts makes global regulation unlikely. Nevertheless, a possible alternative to universal frameworks and national regulation might be the creation of 'blocs of trust', established through international conventions.

To investigate terrorism, law enforcement and intelligence agencies increasingly require assistance from multinational technology companies including Facebook, Google and Apple. These companies can assist with decrypting secret communications or unlocking personal devices, but not, they maintain, without undermining the privacy and security of all their users. While other western countries continue to debate these issues, Australia legislated quickly to enhance decryption capabilities with little industry consultation. This article examines the encryption laws recently enacted by the Australian federal parliament, which allow law enforcement and intelligence agencies to require technical assistance from 'designated communications providers'. It interrogates the government's justifications for these laws and examines the wider legal and political context in which they were enacted. The analysis confirms that Australia's approach to decryption does not represent sound practice and instead reflects a pattern of rights-infringing lawmaking in response to terrorism.

Several crypto communities have claimed to have revolutionary potential and to present a possible alternative to the state legal order. In this paper, we first mention three different generations of crypto communities, revealing their shared narrative, before focusing on the Silk Road dark web marketplace. Based on the qualitative content analysis of the Silk Road forum, we look into whether this platform should be understood as a legal order, a revolutionary movement, or simply a capitalist marketplace. Lastly, the article includes a short discussion of the question whether or not an online platform such as the Silk Road poses a serious challenge for state sovereignty.

In this paper we examine what ‘data literacy’ – under various definitions – means at a time of persistent distribution of ‘dis-/mis-/mal-information’ via digital media. The paper first explores the definition of literacies (written, media, information, digital and data literacies) considering the various parameters and considerations they have gone through. We then examine the intersection of dis-/mis-/mal-information and ‘fake-news’ and these literacies. The paper explores what types of literacies are needed today and the important role of variations in citizens' social context. We highlight three main gaps in current data literacy frameworks – 1. going beyond the individual; 2. critical thinking of the online ecosystem; and 3. designing skills for proactive citizens. We discuss these gaps while highlighting how we integrated these into our survey of UK citizens' data literacies as part of our Nuffield Foundation funded project - Me and My Big Data. By discussing our theoretical and methodological challenges we aim to shed light on not only how the definition of data literacy changes but also how we can develop education programmes that take into account information distortions and put proactive citizens at the centre.

This paper argues that data literacy today needs to go beyond the mere skills to use data. Instead, it suggests the concept of an extended critical big data literacy that places awareness and critical reflection of big data systems at its centre. The presented research findings give first insights into a wide variety of examples of online resources that foster such literacy. A qualitative multi-methods study with three points in time further investigated the views of citizens about the effects of these tools. Key findings are a positive effect particularly of interactive and accessible data literacy tools with appealing visualisations and constructive advice as well as highly insightful suggestions for future tools.

The aim of this article is to examine some of the emerging challenges associated with digital youth inclusion and the asymmetric power dynamics between those who collect data and those who are the targets of the data collection process - commonly referred to as the ‘big data divide’. Digital inclusion is understood here as a strategy to ensure that all people have equal opportunities and appropriate skills to access and benefit from digital technologies. Digital inclusion practice encompasses a range of methods and approaches used to help individuals and communities to access and understand digital technologies. While the literature analysis is framed within a wider, international context, the discussion is primarily situated within Scotland’s studies. The analysis presented here reveals that many existing youth digital inclusion programmes are corporate-led and primarily focus on functional digital literacy (e.g., how to access information online), and not critical digital literacy (e.g., how to critically analyse the information online). I argue here that digital inclusion should not solely be viewed as a strategy for employment and education, but as a set of larger, systematic, continually evolving, and critical youth engagement practice. In the era of the ‘big data divide’, digital inclusion programmes should aim to enable young people’s critical digital abilities to continually review and respond to their positions within the power structures of the data society. To achieve this, I propose three areas for consideration for youth digital inclusion practice.

As more of our everyday lives become digital, it has become crucial to include everyone in the digital society. This special issue is examining the different layers of digital inclusion and data literacy by drawing on research, policy, and practice developments around literacies in various regions and contexts. It highlights the politics around them so as to propose policies that are needed to include more people in datafied societies, and what types of literacies they should learn. This issue includes three commentaries by experts in the field and five peer-reviewed academic papers that go towards tackling digital inclusion. This means to find solutions to the fact that many people are left behind technological advancements, and that these create what is commonly called - the digital divide.

This conceptual paper addresses the issues of transparency as linked to artificial intelligence (AI) from socio-legal and computer scientific perspectives. Firstly, we discuss the conceptual distinction between transparency in AI and algorithmic transparency, and argue for the wider concept ‘in AI’, as a partly contested albeit useful notion in relation to transparency. Secondly, we show that transparency as a general concept is multifaceted, and of widespread theoretical use in multiple disciplines over time, particularly since the 1990s. Still, it has had a resurgence in contemporary notions of AI governance, such as in the multitude of recently published ethics guidelines on AI. Thirdly, we discuss and show the relevance of the fact that transparency expresses a conceptual metaphor of more general significance, linked to knowing, bringing positive connotations that may have normative effects to regulatory debates. Finally, we draw a possible categorisation of aspects related to transparency in AI, or what we interchangeably call AI transparency, and argue for the need of developing a multidisciplinary understanding, in order to contribute to the governance of AI as applied on markets and in society.

Diverse rural Indigenous communities in Canada, like those in many regions of the world, are facing a variety of challenges and opportunities associated with the development, deployment, and adoption of rapidly emerging digital technologies. These include supply-side challenges (such as availability and cost) and demand-side challenges (such as appropriate digital literacy programmes). This article discusses two examples of digital inclusion co-developed with Indigenous peoples in Canada: a supply-side intervention focused on digital access policy, and a demand-side intervention focused on digital adoption.

This article proposes a situational reading of digital exclusion. This is developed using an analytical approach based on life courses. The perspective is to analyse digital exclusion risks around the transitions and ruptures that shape the life courses. The research examines multiple stages within educational, professional and private trajectories and explores the uses of technology in these situations. It analyses the diversity of use in relation to the situations in which they take place and according to their significance at different points in life. Recognising the heterogeneity of courses and of individual experience, this approach allows us to work out the characteristics of digital uses and the potential risks of exclusion to which the individual is exposed.

This article argues that political micro-targeting impacts the fundamental right of the non-targeted citizens to receive information, and consequently, the democratic public discourse. The right to information is the passive side of freedom of expression, among other protected by Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights. Freedom of political expression is also an instrument to create a diverse and free public debate; therefore, expressions that counteract this goal cannot avail of the protection.

Facial-recognition software continues to create heated controversy, as illustrated by a year-long pilot run at the Berlin-Südkreuz train station. The test run at one of Berlin’s main arteries was a catalyst for media attention, spurring heated discourse on the efficiency and legitimacy of surveillance technology. Drawing on a critical discourse analysis and (post-)panoptic theory, this paper investigates how the relationship between the public and the state is represented, how automated surveillance technology is linguistically framed and which problematisations were associated with the technology deployed during the 2017 pilot.

The title of this piece is a somewhat heavy-handed word play. The property market I’m writing about is the market in intellectual property, which is broken in so many ways, evidenced by the existence of patent mountains and patent trolls, fighting over how many angles they can fit in the 360 degrees around the head of a pin, rather than actually innovating. (It is well known in creative tech circles that pausing to talk to the IP lawyers would never have led to the discovery of the internet protocol). The emergent property I’m referring to is the possibility that such a complex system could fairly suddenly exhibit some new behaviour. In this article, I speculate that this new behaviour could just be that the idea of property ceases to exist. The article is written somewhat derivatively after the 1960s science fiction style of writers such as Cyril Kornbluth, JG Ballard, and John Brunner. Any resemblance to their very creative output is entirely good luck rather than actual skill.

The essay is written in the form of a magazine article published in 2039 – eleven years after the introduction of NeoTouch, a technology facilitating digital touch as human-to-human communication based on a brain-computer interface (BCI). The article follows Barbara, a young woman who recently had the technology deactivated, so as to understand the social and physical consequences of the device. Through the introduction of different voices the narrative integrates the history of the technology, the ethical, social and legal contexts and various personal accounts.

Feel like living in a dystopia? Take a deep breath, get a strong coffee, and let us challenge your ideas of where reality ends, and sci-fi begins…

It is 2038. In our data-driven future, data has been firmly established as an economic asset and new, data-driven smart technologies have changed the way we live, work, love, think and vote. However, privacy laws provide a powerful counterbalance against data usage, stifling innovation. Joanne Asschenberg, a young entrepreneur, finds out the hard way when she introduces her AI personal assistant. While the law is clear, the private GDPR enforcement boards have in practice made use of AI impossible. She has to find a creative solution within the law or risk losing the AI completely...

This story is inspired by the growing feasibility of Decentralised Autonomous Corporations (DACs), operating by means of distributed blockchain technologies. The story is set in the near future where a decentralised corporation – powered by machine-learning algorithms and fed on an unending stream of data – has entirely penetrated the fabric of society. Ultimately, however, it is the narcissism of humans – their insatiable need to be recognised in some way – that drives the exponential power of the corporation. Some of the themes that emerge from the story are: 1) the production of social media content, 2) the dangers of corporate personhood, 3) the nature of human and non-human agency, 4) the nature of truth in the context of the information age, and 5) the potential impact of fully autonomous technologies.

The Digital Agenda Committee of the Bundestag was a remarkable institutional change in Germany. It represents the first body of its kind among all EU member states. In this article, we analyse it in its first legislative session (2013-2017) and examine the case of data retention legislation to determine if it had the effect sought by internet policy entrepreneurs of the time. Thereby, we contribute to a better understanding of whether internet issues became institutionalised in the Bundestag and, generally, how new policies emerge. Our results show that the new committee did not promote and share a common policy image in the first session. However, it strongly drifted to become a venue for digital policy. International scholars can learn not only about the establishment of new committees in the German parliament but also about an analytical framework to analyse cases in other parliaments or institutional settings.

Demands for a more democratic, transparent and accountable management of the internet were strong when preparing for the World Summit on the Information Society Review (WSIS Review), held in 2015. Partly in response to criticism, the United States initiated a process for transferring responsibility for domain names from the United States to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Increased accountability was among the key motivations for this change. ICANN practices what have subsequently been termed multi-stakeholder governance. This article finds that this form of governance is preferable to an intergovernmental governance model both in terms of transparency and accountability.

This paper studies the role of domain registries in relation to unlawful or unwanted use of a domain name or the underlying website content. It is an empirical and conceptual contribution to the online content regulation debate, with specific focus on European country code top-level (ccTLD) domain name registries. An analysis of the terms of service of 30 European ccTLD registries shows that one third of the registries contain some use-related provision, which corresponds to approximately 47% of registered domains. The analysis also turns towards examples of notice-and-takedown mechanisms, the emergence of proactive screening and the practice of data validation. Based on the analysis, it calls for more clarity and transparency regarding domain registries’ role in content- or use-related takedowns.

Over the past two decades, Russia has championed the primacy of national governments in managing the global internet. Scholars attribute Russia’s global internet governance philosophy and practices predominantly to its increasingly authoritarian and illiberal regime under President Vladimir Putin. This article, by contrast, explores how Russian ruling elites’ view of Russia as an immutable great power has directed the subsequent Russian governments’ pursuit of a state-based multipolar digital order. To illuminate cultural continuities in Russia’s approach to global communication governance in the post-Soviet period, I examine its state-centric policymaking initiatives at the International Telecommunication Union and the United Nations in the 1990s.

Society is becoming increasingly dependent on data-rich, “Big Tech” platforms and social networks, such as Facebook and Google. But what happens to our data when these companies close or fail? Despite the high stakes involved, this topic has received only limited attention to date. In this article, we use the hypothetical failure of Facebook as a case study to analyse legal and ethical risks related to the closure of data-rich, Big Tech platforms. Focusing on the EU, we argue that existing governance frameworks are inadequate for addressing these risks and make preliminary recommendations with a view to setting an agenda for future research and policymaking on the demise of Big Tech platforms and data-rich companies more broadly.

This contribution discusses the growing importance of cyber attacks directed at the public sphere and the crucial role of non-state actors in cyber attacks from a perspective of just war theory. Going back to Grotius’ and Vitoria’s seminal teachings on international law, the article makes the case for distributed cyber deterrence involving private and public actors. Further, it justifies sanctions for cyber attacks that do not cause physical violence, for example the interference with elections or the hacking of companies. It considers the post-physicality of cyberspace, the attribution problem, private just war theory and national self-determination through deliberation.

News outlets worldwide increasingly adopt user- and system-driven personalisation to individualise their news delivery. Yet, the technical implementation of news personalisation systems, in particular the one relying on algorithmic news recommenders (ANRs) and tailoring individual news suggestions with the help of user data, often remains opaque. In our article, we examine how news personalisation is used by quality and popular media in three countries with different media accountability infrastructures - Brazil, the Netherlands, and Russia - and investigate how information about personalisation usage is communicated to the news readers via privacy policies. Our findings point out that news personalisation systems are predominantly treated as black boxes that indicate a significant gap between practice and theory of algorithmic transparency, in particular in the non-EU context.

A private order of public communication has emerged. Today, social network services fulfill important communicative functions. A lot has been written about the failings of companies in deleting problematic content. This paper flips the question and asks under which conditions users can sue to reinstate content and under which circumstances courts have recognised ‘must carry’ obligations for social network services. Our analysis, an initial comparative analysis of case law on the reinstatement of user-generated content, will point to a larger issue of systemic relevance, namely the differences in treatment of states and private companies as threats to and/or guarantors of fundamental rights in the United States and in Germany. It is a contribution to the important debate on the interaction of states and platforms in governing online content.

This article argues that the United States (US) has been able to exploit the international market dominance of US-based internet companies in order to internationalise state power through surveillance programmes conducted by national security and law enforcement agencies. The article also examines the emerging threat to the US from China, which is attempting to establish ‘geo-economic space’ for its own internet and technology companies. As Chinese companies become more competitive, they threaten both the commercial dominance of US companies as well as the geopolitical power of the US state. Furthermore, the US has concerns that the entrance of Chinese companies into its own market, specifically Huawei, could make it susceptible to the ‘internationalised’ power of China – such as Chinese state surveillance. In response, the US has sought to shrink the ‘geo-economic space’ available to Huawei by using its firms, such as Google, to disrupt Huawei’s supply chains.

© 2020, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society. All rights reserved. Personal information management systems (PIMS) aka personal data stores (PDSs) represent an emerging class of technology that seeks to empower individuals regarding their data. Presented as an alternative to current ‘centralised’ data processing approaches, whereby user data is (rather opaquely) collected and processed by organisations, PDSs provide users with technical mechanisms for aggregating and managing their own data, determining when and with whom their data is shared, and the computation that may occur over that data. Though arguments for decentralisation may be appealing, there are questions regarding the extent to which PDSs actually address data processing concerns. This paper explores these questions from the perspective of PDS users. Specifically, we focus on data protection, including how PDSs relate to rights and the legal bases for processing, as well as how PDSs affect the information asymmetries and surveillance practices inherent online. We show that, despite the purported benefits of PDSs, many of the systemic issues of online/data ecosystems remain.

The growing power of digital platforms raises the question of democratic control or at least containment. In light of the transforming impact of platforms on markets, the public sphere, elections, and employment conditions, governments, and civil society alike are demanding more transparency and accountability. Shedding light on the principles and practices of algorithmic ordering promises to limit the power of platforms by subjecting their hidden operations to regulatory inspection. This article questions the popular image of an openable ‘black box’. Based on a critical reflection on transparency as a panacea for curtailing platform power, we propose the concept of observability to deal more systematically with the problem of studying complex algorithmic systems. We set out three broad principles as regulatory guidelines for making platforms more accountable. These principles concern the normative and analytical scope, the empirical and temporal dimension, and the necessary capacities for learning and knowledge generation.

Platform power is a societal concern on many levels. Thus, we argue that addressing it with the common market competition approach is limited. The research we present aims to develop and test an alternative approach to conceptualising and assessing platform power. We propose a framework that operationalises the concept of the integrated platform ecosystem by bounding it with theories of harm to citizen wellbeing. Applying it, instead of defining a market, we use a specific, novel theory of harm to define the audiovisual advertising ecosystem. Our investigation into the dynamics of this ecosystem and conditions shaping them incorporated elite interviews with representatives of firms involved, document analysis and an examination of legal frameworks in a sample of four European jurisdictions. The evidence we present points to an inherent bias in the opacity of trading and to systemic advantage in relationship building, as well as potential power imbalances at 'nodes' where data is used for targeting, planning, and metrics. We discuss the policy implications of these findings and suggest specific questions for regulators to be asking.

This paper presents two case studies of Facebook's rapid changes relating to international electoral politics: the "I'm a Voter" affordance and the platform's data and targeting capabilities. The article shows how Facebook changed with respect to its policies, procedures, and affordances, especially given the normative pressure exerted by journalists. Drawing from these case studies, we conceptualise continual and rapid change as "platform transience" and argue that it often arises from external pressure and economic considerations. Platform transience has significant implications for the ability of stakeholders to hold platforms accountable, raises significant issues for electoral fairness, and increases the potential for unequal political information environments.

The use of big data in political campaigns extends far beyond micro-targeting, and has been singled out by journalists and campaign staffers alike as a powerful force that is integral to electoral victory. Current scholarship on the subject remains more mixed, however. This article provides an overview of what we know (and don’t yet know) about the effects of data-campaigning across various goals of political campaigns, alongside more public facing narratives that present data campaigning as an all-powerful tactic, highlighting the gap between these two views.

The same micro-targeted programmatic advertising that has become central to the digital media and marketing ecosystem has now migrated into election campaigns in the US and elsewhere, raising a host of issues around privacy, discrimination, and manipulation. This paper examines the digital strategies and technologies of today’s political campaigns, explaining how they will be deployed in the upcoming 2020 election cycle, and assessing regulatory and policy responses — both enacted and proposed — for increasing transparency and accountability in digital politics.