Digital Transformation

Online platforms shape communication but face moderation challenges. The DSA introduces risk governance for platforms to improve online safety. What are the DSA's procedures and impact?

A conversation with Dr. Ulrike Klinger about political communication, the transformation of digital public spheres, local communication and the challenges to democracy in the digital age.

Targeted advertising, or microtargeting, involves displaying selected ads to a predefined group of users on a platform at auctioned prices. This Explainer highlights the implications and controversies surrounding the practice.

This backgrounder aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of how digital media are shaping democracy and what might be done to limit possible avenues of anti-democratic abuse, while kindling their democratic potential.

Over the past two decades, digital rights have become central to global internet governance debates, with varying interpretations across countries. This Spotlight offers an overview of digital rights in Israel.

A conversation with Carlos Hernández- Echevarría from Maldita.es, a Spanish independent journalistic platform focused on the control of disinformation and public discourse through fact-checking and data journalism techniques. 

A conversation with Danny Rogers from the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) on the business model behind disinformation activities and ways to defund and disincentivize their propagators by providing the industry with clear definitions and data.

A conversation with Sam Jeffers, Co-Founder of "Who Targets Me", about the power of social media, and particularly, of social media advertising in influencing people in election campaigns and ways of making the political campaigning environment more trustworthy, transparent and comprehensible for people.

A conversation with Nicole Krause from the Life Sciences Communication Department at the University of Wisconsin about science and political communication and ways to communicate more effectively with conservative, religious and rural audiences.

If the development of a commercially viable quantum computer is successful, those companies and governments that had early access to hardware and software will have a significant business advantage and increase in technological sovereignty over those who entered the race late.

This Spotlight explores how the ability of AI to disseminate information more effectively is prone to abuse and can pose a threat to democracy. It then discusses the preconditions and potential of AI to support the building of a critical public sphere.

The DSA could help addressing the challenges of harmful content and disinformation online by increasing the legal protections while encouraging platforms to be more transparent and accountable without imposing requirements to generally monitor content.

One can say that fake news is old news, and so are misogyny, sexism, and gender stereotypes. What has changed in the digital era is the ease of coordinating, financing, and propagating disinformation campaigns.

Traditional news media, especially print, face existential threats in the digital era but continue to play a vital role in sustaining the public sphere despite their reduced scale.

A conversation with Dr. Erez Garty from the Davidson Institute about misinformation around Covid-19 in Israel, vaccine hesitancy and what is needed to make a dent in the problem of science denialism and propagation of conspiracy theories.

In a hyperlinked media ecosystem, separate actions taken by distinct online platforms to curb disinformation efforts are falling short as adversarial actors forge ahead. This Spotlight describes two emerging ways in which actors have used cross-platform tactics to successfully execute disinformation campaigns.

Regulatory interdependence shapes AI ethics enforcement and requires a diverse approach to enhance jurisdictions' AI sovereignty, crucial for the EU's digital sovereignty goals.

Over the past two decades, social media has significantly reshaped democratic societies, offering greater diversity of opinion and information exchange while also posing risks of subversion exploited by authoritarian regimes.

2021 has seen new momentum in the global debate on cyber norms. Germany figures among the avid supporters of cyber norms. Yet, does the German government practice what it preaches? 

This backgrounder explores AI's impact on democracy, focusing on three areas: its influence on the public sphere, its role in election campaigns, and the accountability of automated decision systems in public services.