How can we monitor political ads circulating on social media in the run-up to an election? This essay learns from the project "Analysis of Political Ads in Digital Campaigns”, combining scraping methods and public opinion research to investigate how online advertising shape political preferences in the Dutch general elections (15-17 March 2021). It further reflects on the challenges of studying the impact of political micro-targeting.
A much anticipated provision in the European Commission’s proposal for a Digital Service Act is Art. 29 DSA - the provision about recommendation algorithms. In this brief commentary we reflect on the background, purpose and potential of Art. 29 to address the effects of recommenders for users and society.
This commentary provides first reflections on the recently published proposal for a Digital Markets Act and its prohibition of discriminatory rankings.
To ban content that might possibly violate their own content policies, social media platforms use the term 'borderline‘. This means categorising content as potentially unwanted (e.g. harmful, inappropriate, etc) and sanctioning legitimate expressions of opinion - hence putting lawful speech in a twilight zone.
Some platforms become systemically relevant in a crisis, so we need regulation that takes this into account before and during the next crisis.
The European Commission recently released its first review of two years of application of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). René Mahieu and Jef Ausloos do not agree with the largely positive self-assessment and explain their main points of contention by summarising their own submission to the Commission.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Recital 23 brought an obligation to all companies that receive, control or process personal data of European Union (EU) residents to comply with the minimal safeguards stated in European legislation.
Since Twitter labelled a tweet by Donald Trump as ‘potentially misleading’ and indicated that it was fact-checking the statement made, the US President signed an ‘Executive Order'. Amélie Heldt finds that far from being new, the situation illustrates how torn we are when it comes to intermediary immunity or rather liability.
This commentary is part of Digital inclusion and data literacy, a special issue of Internet Policy Review guest-edited by Elinor Carmi and Simeon J. Yates.
At the Carnegie UK Trust, a charitable foundation based in Scotland and operating across the UK and Ireland, we have been working for more than 100 years to improve well-being for individuals, community and society.
This commentary is part of Digital inclusion and data literacy, a special issue of Internet Policy Review guest-edited by Elinor Carmi and Simeon J. Yates.