Zara Rahman, Jillian C. York and Henriette Litta
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.
In order to counter this, the following questions, among others, will be discussed in this thematic strand: How can a better discourse be shaped and which instruments do we need for this at which levels? What alternatives are already available today and how can we develop them further? How can aspects such as data protection, transparency and open source be better valued and implemented? Last but not least, the role of the state as an enabler or impediment to democratic opinion-forming will also be discussed in this context.