This article proposes the concept of platform observability to help systematically study complex algorithmic systems. It sets out three broad principles as guidelines for making platforms more accountable.
Research articles on INFORMATION & DATA
This paper is part of Geopolitics, jurisdiction and surveillance, a special issue of Internet Policy Review guest-edited by Monique Mann and Angela Daly. Introduction Since the Snowden revelations in 2013 (see e.g., Lyon, 2014; Lyon, 2015) an ongoing policy issue has been the legitimate scope of surveillance, and the extent to which individuals and groups can assert their fundamental rights, including privacy. There has been a renewed focus on policies regarding access to encrypted communications, which are part of a longer history of the ‘cryptowars’ of the 1990s (see e.g., Koops, 1999). We examine these provisions in the Anglophone ‘Five Eyes’ (FVEY) The FVEY partnership is a comprehensive …
Although the GDPR paves the way for a coordinated EU-wide legal action against data protection infringements, only a reform of private international law rules can enhance the opportunities of data subjects to enforce their rights.
Cyber attacks require distributed deterrence involving private and public actors. Can the classics of international law help?
This paper examines data and privacy governance by four China-based mobile applications and their international versions - including the role of the state. It also highlights the role of platforms in gatekeeping mobile app privacy standards.
This paper examines the ethical and legal issues arising from the closure of a data-rich firms such as Facebook and provides four policy recommendations to mitigate the resulting harms to society.
Can platforms delete whatever content they want? Not everywhere, say the authors of this paper, which shows why certain social networks ‘must carry’ some content – and how users in some jurisdictions can force the companies to allow them into their communicative space.
In this paper we examine what data literacy means in the age of dis-/mis-/mal-information. We examine theoretical and methodological challenges researchers face when examining these two fields and how we can move forward by sharing our own experience in designing a survey to understand UK citizens data literacies.
The paper discusses the novel concept of critical big data literacy and presents first findings on online data literacy tools and their effects.
Targeted political advertising can potentially exclude voter segments from important political information, and undermine the democratic process