Paper by Wolfgang Kerber: “…analyses whether competition law can help to solve problems of access to data and interoperability in IoT ecosystems, where often one firm has exclusive control of the data produced by a smart device (and of the technical access to this device). Such a gatekeeper position can lead to the elimination of competition for aftermarket and other complementary services in such IoT ecosystems. This problem is analysed both from an economic and a legal perspective, and also generally for IoT ecosystems as well as for the much discussed problems of “access to in-vehicle data and re-sources” in connected cars, where the “extended vehicle” concept of the car manufacturers leads to such positions of exclusive control. The paper analyses, in particular, the competition rules about abusive behavior of dominant firms (Art. 102 TFEU) and of firms with “relative market power” (§ 20 (1) GWB) in German competition law. These provisions might offer (if appropriately applied and amended) at least some solutions for these data access problems. Competition law, however, might not be sufficient for dealing with all or most of these problems, i.e. that also additional solutions might be needed (data portability, direct data (access) rights, or sector-specific regulation)….(More)”.
Algorithmic Censorship on Social Platforms: Power, Legitimacy, and Resistance
Paper by Jennifer Cobbe: “Effective content moderation by social platforms has long been recognised as both important and difficult, with numerous issues arising from the volume of information to be dealt with, the culturally sensitive and contextual nature of that information, and the nuances of human communication. Attempting to scale moderation efforts, various platforms have adopted, or signalled their intention to adopt, increasingly automated approaches to identifying and suppressing content and communications that they deem undesirable. However, algorithmic forms of online censorship by social platforms bring their own concerns, including the extensive surveillance of communications and the use of machine learning systems with the distinct possibility of errors and biases. This paper adopts a governmentality lens to examine algorithmic censorship by social platforms in order to assist in the development of a more comprehensive understanding of the risks of such approaches to content moderation. This analysis shows that algorithmic censorship is distinctive for two reasons: (1) it would potentially bring all communications carried out on social platforms within reach, and (2) it would potentially allow those platforms to take a much more active, interventionist approach to moderating those communications. Consequently, algorithmic censorship could allow social platforms to exercise an unprecedented degree of control over both public and private communications, with poor transparency, weak or non-existent accountability mechanisms, and little legitimacy. Moreover, commercial considerations would be inserted further into the everyday communications of billions of people. Due to the dominance of the web by a small number of social platforms, this control may be difficult or impractical to escape for many people, although opportunities for resistance do exist.
While automating content moderation may seem like an attractive proposition for both governments and platforms themselves, the issues identified in this paper are cause for concern and should be given serious consideration.Jennifer CobbeEffective content moderation by social platforms has long been recognised as both important and difficult, with numerous issues arising from the volume of information to be dealt with, the culturally sensitive and contextual nature of that information, and the nuances of human communication. Attempting to scale moderation efforts, various platforms have adopted, or signalled their intention to adopt, increasingly automated approaches to identifying and suppressing content and communications that they deem undesirable. However, algorithmic forms of online censorship by social platforms bring their own concerns, including the extensive surveillance of communications and the use of machine learning systems with the distinct possibility of errors and biases. This paper adopts a governmentality lens to examine algorithmic censorship by social platforms in order to assist in the development of a more comprehensive understanding of the risks of such approaches to content moderation.
This analysis shows that algorithmic censorship is distinctive for two reasons: (1) it would potentially bring all communications carried out on social platforms within reach, and (2) it would potentially allow those platforms to take a much more active, interventionist approach to moderating those communications. Consequently, algorithmic censorship could allow social platforms to exercise an unprecedented degree of control over both public and private communications, with poor transparency, weak or non-existent accountability mechanisms, and little legitimacy. Moreover, commercial considerations would be inserted further into the everyday communications of billions of people. Due to the dominance of the web by a small number of social platforms, this control may be difficult or impractical to escape for many people, although opportunities for resistance do exist. While automating content moderation may seem like an attractive proposition for both governments and platforms themselves, the issues identified in this paper are cause for concern and should be given serious consideration….(More)”.
Making data colonialism liveable: how might data’s social order be regulated?
Paper by Nick Couldry & Ulises Mejias: “Humanity is currently undergoing a large-scale social, economic and legal transformation based on the massive appropriation of social life through data extraction. This quantification of the social represents a new colonial move. While the modes, intensities, scales and contexts of dispossession have changed, the underlying drive of today’s data colonialism remains the same: to acquire “territory” and resources from which economic value can be extracted by capital. The injustices embedded in this system need to be made “liveable” through a new legal and regulatory order….(More)”.
Towards “Government as a Platform”? Preliminary Lessons from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States
Paper by J. Ramon Gil‐Garcia, Paul Henman, and Martha Alicia Avila‐Maravilla: “In the last two decades, Internet portals have been used by governments around the world as part of very diverse strategies from service provision to citizen engagement. Several authors propose that there is an evolution of digital government reflected in the functionality and sophistication of these portals and other technologies. More recently, scholars and practitioners are proposing different conceptualizations of “government as a platform” and, for some, this could be the next stage of digital government. However, it is not clear what are the main differences between a sophisticated Internet portal and a platform. Therefore, based on an analysis of three of the most advanced national portals, this ongoing research paper explores to what extent these digital efforts clearly represent the basic characteristics of platforms. So, this paper explores questions such as: (1) to what extent current national portals reflect the characteristics of what has been called “government as a platform?; and (2) Are current national portals evolving towards “government as a platform”?…(More)”.
Is Privacy and Personal Data Set to Become the New Intellectual Property?
Paper by Leon Trakman, Robert Walters, and Bruno Zeller: “A pressing concern today is whether the rationale underlying the protection of personal data is itself a meaningful foundation for according intellectual property (IP) rights in personal data to data subjects. In particular, are there particular technological attributes about the collection, use and processing of personal data on the Internet, and global access to that data, that provide a strong justification to extend IP rights to data subjects? A central issue in so determining is whether data subjects need the protection of such rights in a technological revolution in which they are increasingly exposed to the use and abuse of their personal data. A further question is how IP law can provide them with the requisite protection of their private space, or whether other means of protecting personal data, such as through general contract rights, render IP protections redundant, or at least, less necessary. This paper maintains that lawmakers often fail to distinguish between general property and IP protection of personal data; that IP protection encompasses important attributes of both property and contract law; and that laws that implement IP protection in light of its sui generis attributes are more fitting means of protecting personal data than the alternatives. The paper demonstrates that one of the benefits of providing IP rights in personal data goes some way to strengthening data subjects’ control and protection over their personal data and strengthening data protection law more generally. It also argues for greater harmonization of IP law across jurisdictions to ensure that the protection of personal data becomes more coherent and internationally sustainable….(More)”.
Computational Communication Science
Introduction to Special Issue of the International Journal of Communication:”Over the past two decades, processes of digitalization and mediatization have shaped the communication landscape and have had a strong impact on various facets of communication. The digitalization of communication results in completely new forms of digital traces that make communication processes observable in new and unprecedented ways. Although many scholars in the social sciences acknowledge the chances and requirements of the digital revolution in communication, they are also facing fundamental challenges in implementing successful research programs, strategies, and designs that are based on computational methods and “big data.” This Special Section aims at bringing together seminal perspectives on challenges and chances of computational communication science (CCS). In this introduction, we highlight the impulses provided by the research presented in the Special Section, discuss the most pressing challenges in the context of CCS, and sketch a potential roadmap for future research in this field….(More)”.
The hidden assumptions in public engagement: A case study of engaging on ethics in government data analysis
Paper by Emily S. Rempel, Julie Barnett and Hannah Durrant: “This study examines the hidden assumptions around running public-engagement exercises in government. We study an example of public engagement on the ethics of combining and analysing data in national government – often called data science ethics. We study hidden assumptions, drawing on hidden curriculum theories in education research, as it allows us to identify conscious and unconscious underlying processes related to conducting public engagement that may impact results. Through participation in the 2016 Public Dialogue for Data Science Ethics in the UK, four key themes were identified that exposed underlying public engagement norms. First, that organizers had constructed a strong imagined public as neither overly critical nor supportive, which they used to find and engage participants. Second, that official aims of the engagement, such as including publics in developing ethical data regulations, were overshadowed by underlying meta-objectives, such as counteracting public fears. Third, that advisory group members, organizers and publics understood the term ‘engagement’ in varying ways, from creating interest to public inclusion. And finally, that stakeholder interests, particularly government hopes for a positive report, influenced what was written in the final report. Reflection on these underlying mechanisms, such as the development of meta-objectives that seek to benefit government and technical stakeholders rather than publics, suggests that the practice of public engagement can, in fact, shut down opportunities for meaningful public dialogue….(More)”.
Envisioning the ‘Sharing City’: Governance Strategies for the Sharing Economy
Paper by Sebastian Vith, Achim Oberg, Markus A. Höllerer and Renate E. Meyer: “Recent developments around the sharing economy bring to the fore questions of governability and broader societal benefit—and subsequently the need to explore effective means of public governance, from nurturing, on the one hand, to restriction, on the other. As sharing is a predominately urban phenomenon in modern societies, cities around the globe have become both locus of action and central actor in the debates over the nature and organization of the sharing economy. However, cities vary substantially in the interpretation of potential opportunities and challenges, as well as in their governance responses. Building on a qualitative comparative analysis of 16 leading global cities, our findings reveal four framings of the sharing economy: ‘societal endangerment,’ ‘societal enhancement,’ ‘market disruption,’ and ‘ecological transition.’ Such framings go hand in hand with patterned governance responses: although there is considerable heterogeneity in the combination of public governance strategies, we find specific configurations of framings and public governance strategies. Our work reflects the political and ethical debates on various economic, social, and moral issues related to the sharing economy, and contributes to a better understanding of the field-level institutional arrangements—a prerequisite for examining moral behavior of sharing economy organizations….(More)”.
Capturing citizen voice online: Enabling smart participatory local government
Tooran Alizadeh, Somwrita Sarkar and Sandy Burgoyne in Cities: “Social media and online communication have changed the way citizens engage in all aspects of lives from shopping and education, to how communities are planned and developed. It is no longer one-way or two- way communication. Instead, via networked all-to-all communication channels, our citizens engage on urban issues in a complex and more connected way than ever before. So government needs new ways to listen to its citizens. The paper comprises three components. Firstly, we build on the growing discussions in the literature focused on smart cities, on one hand, and social media research, on the other, to capture the diversity of citizen voices and better inform decision-making. Secondly, with the support of the Australian Federal Government and in collaboration with the local government partners, we collect citizen voices from Twitter on selected urban projects. Thirdly, we present preliminary findings in terms of quantity and quality of publicly available online data representing citizen concerns on the urban matters. By analyzing the sentiments of the citizen voices captured online, clustering them into topic areas, and then reevaluating citizen’s sentiments within each cluster, we elaborate the scope and value of technologically-enabled opportunities in terms of enabling participatory local government decision making processes….(More)”.
Political innovation, digitalisation and public participation in party politics
Paper by Lisa Schmidthuber, Dennis Hilgers, and Maximilian Rapp: “Citizen engagement is seen as a way to address a range of societal challenges, fiscal constraints, as well as wicked problems, and increasing public participation in political decisions could help to address low levels of trust in politicians and decreasing satisfaction with political parties. This paper examines the perceived impacts of an experiment by the Austrian People’s Party which, in response to reaching a historic low in the polls, opened up its manifesto process to public participation via digital technology. Analysis of survey data from participants found that self-efficacy is positively associated with participation intensity but negatively related to satisfaction. In contrast, collective efficacy is related to positive perceptions of public participation in party politics but does not influence levels of individual participation. Future research is needed to explore the outcomes of political innovations that use digital technologies to enable public participation on voting behaviour, party membership and attitudes to representative democracy….(More)”.