Digital organising

Stephan Bohn, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society
Ali Aslan Gümüsay, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Georg von Richthofen, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society
Georg Reischauer, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business
PUBLISHED ON: 16 Nov 2023 DOI: 10.14763/2023.4.1726

Digital organising refers to the collective purposeful alignment and distributed action fostered through digital technologies. The apparently opposing nature of digital organising draws attention to the need to unravel the concept theoretically.

This paper explores how four commonly proposed collective data intermediaries – data trusts, decentralised autonomous organisations, data cooperatives and data unions – have been envisioned and enacted by their proponents.

Over the past fifty years, surveillance practices once considered untenable due to their incompatibility with democratic rights and values have been rebranded as tolerable, neutral, or even desirable.

Identifying potential emerging human rights implications in Chinese smart cities via machine-learning aided patent analysis

Joss Wright, University of Oxford
Valentin Weber, German Council on Foreign Relations
Gregory Finn Walton, SecDev Group
PUBLISHED ON: 28 Jul 2023 DOI: 10.14763/2023.3.1718

We focus on using patent data, with machine learning methods, in the context of China, for the purpose of tracking the pace of development of potentially human rights sensitive smart city technologies.

From brand safety to suitability: advertisers in platform governance

Rachel Griffin, Paris Institute of Political Studies
PUBLISHED ON: 11 Jul 2023 DOI: 10.14763/2023.3.1716

Advertisers’ concerns about “brand safety” and “brand suitability” are an underappreciated influence on social media platforms’ content governance, with concerning implications for social equality and the freedom of public debate online.