News and Research articles on Governance

Automated decision-making

If transparency is the solution, are we really addressing the problems of automated decision-making?

Hannah Louise Smith, University of Copenhagen

PUBLISHED ON: 24 Jul 2025

While transparency is often championed as the key to addressing the risks of automated decision-making (ADM) in public governance, this op-ed argues that a narrow focus on explainability overlooks deeper systemic issues such as power imbalances, commercial influence, and weakened accountability. To address these issues, mechanisms that promote transparency must operate alongside efforts to enhance citizen engagement and other methods of oversight and accountability to better protect democratic values.

Volume 14, Issue 1

Civil society’s role in constitutionalising global content governance

Nicola Palladino, University of Salerno
Dennis Redeker, University of Bremen
Edoardo Celeste, Dublin City University
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Mar 2025 DOI: 10.14763/2025.1.1830

This article explores how civil society can contribute to constitutionalising social media global content governance by bridging international human rights law with platform policies.

KEYWORDS: Governance, Digital constitutionalism, Civil society, Network analysis
Volume 14, Issue 1

Safer spaces by design? Federated socio-technical architectures in content moderation

Ksenia Ermoshina, National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)
Francesca Musiani, National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Mar 2025 DOI: 10.14763/2025.1.1827

This article analyses the role that informational architectures and infrastructures in federated social media platforms play in content moderation processes.

KEYWORDS: Federation, Content moderation, Censorship, Governance, secure messaging
Volume 13, Issue 4

Accountability protocols? On-chain dynamics in blockchain governance

Kelsie Nabben, European University Institute
Primavera De Filippi, National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS)
PUBLISHED ON: 8 Oct 2024 DOI: 10.14763/2024.4.1807

This paper focuses on the dynamics of accountability in blockchain governance. Drawing on a case study of the Lido protocol on Ethereum, it explores the rule of code, on-chain accountability, accountability trade-offs, and the complexities of determining when accountability can be better instantiated via on-chain or off-chain mechanisms.

KEYWORDS: Blockchain, Accountability, Governance, Rule of code, Design
Volume 13, Issue 3

Balancing efficiency and public interest: The impact of AI automation on social benefit provision in Brazil

Maria Alejandra Nicolás, Federal University of Latin American Integration
Rafael Cardoso Sampaio, Federal University of Paraná
PUBLISHED ON: 30 Sep 2024 DOI: 10.14763/2024.3.1799

The Brazilian Social Security Management Office's AI system reduces the waiting list but increases automatic refusals, harming beneficiaries and increasing inequality in the delivery of public services to the poorest and elderly people.

KEYWORDS: Artificial intelligence, Public interest, Governance, Social benefit provision, Brazil
Volume 13, Issue 3

The unusual DAO: An ethnography of building trust in “trustless” spaces

Tara Merk, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)/University of Paris II
PUBLISHED ON: 24 Sep 2024 DOI: 10.14763/2024.3.1795

This paper investigates decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) as a potential policy response to the issue of declining trust online and argues that while DAOs have privileged displacing the need for trust, they can also be designed to nourish trust thereby fostering participation and prosocial use cases.

KEYWORDS: Blockchain, Trust, Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs), Ethnography, Governance
Volume 13, Issue 2

Introduction to the special issue on Locating and theorising platform power

David Nieborg, University of Toronto
Thomas Poell, University of Amsterdam
Robyn Caplan, Duke University
José van Dijck, Utrecht University
PUBLISHED ON: 26 Jun 2024 DOI: 10.14763/2024.2.1781

Against the backdrop of ongoing public and political debates about the power and regulation of large platform conglomerates, this special issue presents critical, conceptual, and empirical studies that home in on the various modalities of platform power.

KEYWORDS: Platform power, Governance, Infrastructure, Markets, Relational
Volume 12, Issue 1

Future-proofing the city: A human rights-based approach to governing algorithmic, biometric and smart city technologies

Alina Wernick, University of Helsinki
Anna Artyushina, York University
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Mar 2023 DOI: 10.14763/2023.1.1695

This special issue brings together scholars from a range of disciplines to identify the human rights implications of algorithmic, biometric and smart city technologies and the means to govern them. In the editorial, we propose a framework for the analysis and design of human-rights-based smart cities.

KEYWORDS: Smart cities, Governance, Biometric, Algorithmic governance, Human rights
Volume 9, Issue 4

Digital commons

Mélanie Dulong de Rosnay, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)
Felix Stalder, Zurich University of the Arts
PUBLISHED ON: 17 Dec 2020 DOI: 10.14763/2020.4.1530

Digital commons, understood as shared information, culture and knowledge resources created and maintained online, are a crucial concept to think about the development of the digital sphere beyond surveillance capitalism and steer it toward a more socially inclusive and sustainable economy and a renewal of democracy.

KEYWORDS: Commons, Commoning, Commons-based peer production, Digital resources, Governance, Community, Open data, Open access, Open science, Open licensing, Openness, Democracy, Inclusion
Volume 8, Issue 4

Platformisation

Thomas Poell, University of Amsterdam
David Nieborg, University of Toronto
José van Dijck, Utrecht University
PUBLISHED ON: 29 Nov 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.4.1425

What is platformisation? This article contextualises, defines, and operationalises the concept. Drawing insights from different scholarly perspectives on platforms it develops a comprehensive approach to this process.

KEYWORDS: Platforms, Platformisation, Datafication, Multi-sided markets, Political economy, Governance
Volume 8, Issue 4

Algorithmic governance

Christian Katzenbach, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society
Lena Ulbricht, Berlin Social Science Center (WZB)
PUBLISHED ON: 29 Nov 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.4.1424

Algorithmic governance as a key concept in controversies around the emerging digital society takes up the idea that digital technologies produce social ordering in a specific way.

KEYWORDS: Transparency, Automation, Politicisation, Regulation, Social ordering, Governance, Predictive policing, Content moderation, Algorithmic governance
Volume 8, Issue 2

Zombie contracts, dark patterns of design, and ‘documentisation’

Kristin B. Cornelius, University of California, Los Angeles
PUBLISHED ON: 30 Jun 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.2.1412

Standard form consumer contracts (SFCCs), including Terms of Service agreements, are drafted by businesses and presented to consumers on a non-negotiable basis. Since these contracts present an asymmetric imbalance of information and resources between parties, they have been of concern for consumer rights in recent years. While some have characterized these issues as a ‘duty to read’ for consumers or as egregious terms and weak disclosures by drafters,’ this project suggests at least part of the issues exist from a lack of consideration of the document itself (i.e., medium, format, authenticy, reliability, stability) and the processes that deem it ‘standard.’

KEYWORDS: Terms of Service (TOS), Standard form contracts, Records, Evidence, Governance