Governing phygital spaces: Human rights by design meets speculative design

Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, Israel Democracy Institute
Rachel Aridor Hershkovitz, Israel Democracy Institute
Romi Mikulinsky, Aalto University
Boris Müller, Fachhochschule Potsdam
PUBLISHED ON: 18 Nov 2025 DOI: 10.14763/2025.4.2048

What happens when legal principles meet speculative storytelling and role-play workshops? Our interdisciplinary team found new ways to govern smart glasses, leading to the ‘ethics of interactions’ framework.

Troubling translation: Sociotechnical research in AI policy and governance

Serena Oduro, Data & Society Research Institute
Alice E. Marwick, Data & Society Research Institute
Charley Johnson, Data & Society Research Institute
Erie Meyer, Georgetown Institute for Technology & Law
PUBLISHED ON: 18 Nov 2025 DOI: 10.14763/2025.4.2043

The common call for researchers to simply “translate” sociotechnical insights into policy overlooks the complex dynamics of policymaking. Using two case studies, the article shows how meaningful relationships, not just translation, are key to embedding sociotechnical research in AI governance.

Developing the Citizen Summit Method: Understanding citizens’ views on digital surveillance technologies

Sally Dibb, Manchester Metropolitan University
Kirstie Ball, University of St Andrews Business School
Sara Degli Esposti, Institute of Philosophy of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC)
PUBLISHED ON: 18 Nov 2025 DOI: 10.14763/2025.4.2045

This paper discusses how to turn citizen summits into a robust, replicable, and participatory mixed methods approach for studying public views on digital surveillance technologies and other areas of internet policy.

By opening the craft of interdisciplinary method to more explicit scrutiny, this special issue provides a novel space to examine how knowledge in the domains of cybersecurity, privacy, and digital rights governance is made, contested, and reshaped.

Trading nuance for scale? Platform observability and content governance under the DSA

Charis Papaevangelou, University of Amsterdam
Fabio Votta, University of Amsterdam
PUBLISHED ON: 17 Sep 2025 DOI: 10.14763/2025.3.2037

This paper explores how the Digital Services Act’s Transparency Database enables platform observability, revealing critical insights into the practices of content moderation across the EU.

What does a recent decision by the European Union’s Court of Justice – ruling that IAB Europe is liable under the GDPR for a technical standard it wrote – mean for internet standard-setting organisations?

Facebook, the EU and Russia’s war: Challenges of moderating authoritarian news

Julia Kling, University of Passau
Serge Poliakoff, University of Amsterdam
PUBLISHED ON: 11 Sep 2025 DOI: 10.14763/2025.3.2036

Despite several measures to curb their visibility, this study shows how Facebook mediates predominantly Russian state-aligned news during Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine

Who’s at stake? The (non)performativity of “stakeholders” in UK tech policy

Maisy Taylor, University of York
Sarah Vollmer, University of Utrecht
Zaynab Ravat, Solent University
Garfield Benjamin, University of Cambridge
PUBLISHED ON: 4 Sep 2025 DOI: 10.14763/2025.3.2033

Tech policy often makes appeals to the interests of stakeholders, but in this study we show the different forms of power that are performed through the use of this term in UK tech policy.

How the new digital knowledge order is impacting science

Donya Alinejad, Utrecht University
PUBLISHED ON: 26 Aug 2025 DOI: 10.14763/2025.3.2031

To develop a response to what the new digital knowledge order means for science and scholarship, we need research and policy that focuses on the multiple ways platform power shapes academic knowledge production and communication.