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.
News and Research articles on Transparency
If transparency is the solution, are we really addressing the problems of automated decision-making?
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.
Transparency and content moderation are becoming increasingly interconnected within legislation. It is time for tech companies to recognise this in the context of borderline terrorist and violent extremist content moderation.
Employing a scenario-based method, the authors of this op-ed find that generative AI is not a solution, but a symptom of an overburdened and crisis-ridden academic system. The choice ahead, they argue, is clear.
This article evaluates how to reconcile AI Act’s Art. 50 transparency provisions applicable to AI-generated text with news readers’ perceptions of manipulation and empowerment.
This study critically discusses platforms’ non-compliance with data access based on a collaborative policy effort from scholars engaging in data donation studies.
This paper delivers a legal analysis that explores whether the privacy labels of the Apple App Store and Google Play Store meet the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), along with insights into the adoption of app developers to map the extent of the problem.
This empirical study of governance and ethics regarding the adoption of smart intersection in four US college towns, structured by the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework, calls for deliberative, slow-governance of public data to respect human rights and align with community norms.
This paper investigates whether it is possible for external publics to detect algorithmic targeting in political advertisements, using the tools provided by the Facebook Ad Library.
The Regulation on Political Advertising (RPA) represents the EU’s most significant effort to address concerns about political advertising’s democratic impact, but does it live up to the Commission’s hype?
In this article, we assess the effectiveness and impact of telecommunications transparency reports on government requests for information.
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.
We examined how news personalisation is communicated through privacy policies of quality and popular media outlets in the Netherlands, Russia and Brazil.
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.
Ad archives are a novel tool in online advertising governance. They promise significant benefits, but only if their operators address key criticisms.
The German Network Enforcement Act is an attempt to counteract the effects of hate speech on social media platforms. This paper analyses and evaluates the reports on the handling of complaints about unlawful content after its coming into force.
Given the weakness of consent-dependent agreements in relation to profiling and prediction markets, consumer protection needs improvement.
This article distils from the various (proposals for) platform regulation operational principles that can serve as the basis for productive debate on the subject.
This paper discusses resolution of the contested meanings of inclusiveness, accountability and transparency in trade policymaking.
The importance of personal data for the digital economy accentuates a problematic information asymmetry between consumers and the data-driven market players. An increased consumer protection would have to deal with the lack of transparency of this black-box setup and a flawed use of consent as regulatory model. The consumer protection needs to be improved in practice, in its implementation, not only in its policy.