News on Governance

F5, a new German civil society coalition is calling for a change of perspective: digital policy must finally centre on promoting the common good.

This op-ed looks at Australia and asks whether Europeans need to worry about social media blocking access to news content.

​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.

Some platforms become systemically relevant in a crisis, so we need regulation that takes this into account before and during the next crisis.

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. Note from the author When I sat down to write the following commentary in February 2020 COVID-19 had not yet taken hold across UK, as it had done in China and other areas of East Asia. However

The "Enabling act” passed by the Hungarian parliament on 30 March 2020 empowered the Hungarian government with uncontrolled opportunity to rule by decrees. The act also amended the criminal code. The new rules are suitable to limit free and critical reporting about governmental measures.

Germany is amending its Network Enforcement Act (hereinafter NetzDG). NetzDG did not have the harmful consequences on online speech that many feared. Now, the government still overestimates the benefits of such a law.

Will this crisis finally change how social media make editorial decisions?