News and Research articles on Corporations

Data-driven elections: implications and challenges for democratic societies

Colin J. Bennett, University of Victoria
David Lyon, Queen's University
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Dec 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.4.1433

In the wake of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, it is timely to review the state of the debate about the impact of data-driven elections and to identify key questions that require academic research and regulatory response. The papers in this collection, by some of the world’s most prominent elections researchers, offer that assessment.

WhatsApp and political instability in Brazil: targeted messages and political radicalisation

Rafael Evangelista, State University of Campinas (Unicamp)
Fernanda Bruno, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Dec 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.4.1434

This paper analyses the spread of misinformation in the context of 2018 Brazilian elections. We give a general overview of the Brazilian political context, its media ecosystem and the weaponisation of the country’s most popular messaging app, WhatsApp, as a political persuasion tool. The current architecture of the platform does not allow, once appropriated for purposes of election campaigns, users to notice or become aware that they are being monitored and managed.

Platform transience: changes in Facebook’s policies, procedures, and affordances in global electoral politics

Bridget Barrett, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Daniel Kreiss, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Dec 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.4.1446

This paper shows how platforms are transient in the policies, procedures, and affordances and details the implications for politics.

Focusing on whether data-intensive technologies used in political campaigning are accurate and effective misses the point about their larger role in politics. This piece briefly addresses the popular question of “Does it work?” and suggests a series of questions and provocations that aim to more holistically capture the extent of tech-led disruption in a time of creeping voter surveillance.   

Disinformation optimised: gaming search engine algorithms to amplify junk news

Samantha Bradshaw, Oxford Internet Institute
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Dec 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.4.1442

This paper examines how Google Search ranked 29 junk news domains between 2016 and 2019, finding that SEO — rather than paid advertising — is the most important strategy for generating discoverability via Google Search. Google has taken several steps to combat the spread of disinformation on Search, and these strategies have been largely successful at limiting the discoverability of junk news.

Voter preferences, voter manipulation, voter analytics: policy options for less surveillance and more autonomy

Jacquelyn Burkell, The University of Western Ontario
Priscilla M. Regan, George Mason University
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Dec 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.4.1438

Personalised political messaging undermines voter autonomy and the electoral process. Use of voter analytics for political communication must be regulated.

Is the “European approach” an adequate response to the challenges of disinformation and political manipulation, especially in election periods?

The countering of terrorism propaganda online, through private companies, may little by little kill our right to freedom of expression.

Is the internet helping democracy or autocracy in Turkey?

Osman Coşkunoğlu, Turkish Parliament (formerly a member of)

PUBLISHED ON: 7 Feb 2017

After the global euphoria about the internet's potentials for empowering individuals and supporting democracy, more realistic arguments have been put forward against this optimism. 1 Indeed, we have been observing an ongoing fight between the autocratic government in Turkey and the Turkish people over using the internet for the last 10 years. It started with Law No. 5651 which was passed in 2007.

The clash between internet freedom and the need to tax

Monika Ermert, Heise, Intellectual Property Watch, VDI-Nachrichten

PUBLISHED ON: 24 Jul 2014

Much of our economy is moving online, but who will pay taxes, when virtual is tax exempted or when only some regions earn from the digital businesses lured by nice lax tax regulation or otherwise. Read up on how the struggle for tax and data are intertwined.

Is there such a thing as free government data?

Federico Morando, Nexa Center for Internet & Society, Politecnico de Torino
Raimondo Iemma, Nexa Center for Internet & Society
Simone Basso, Nexa Center for Internet & Society
PUBLISHED ON: 21 Nov 2013 DOI: 10.14763/2013.4.219

The new European public sector information directive, released in June 2013, makes “marginal cost” the default charge for government data. How to implement this principle? A consultation is ongoing. This article focusses on the calculation criteria for marginal costs.

Slovenia out of luck as pioneers out for lunch

Monika Ermert, Heise, Intellectual Property Watch, VDI-Nachrichten

PUBLISHED ON: 13 Sep 2013

Is Slovenia at the avant-garde of communications policy? One says yes, the next says no. Where lies the thruth?  Read the first of our country-by-country series on smaller countries in Europe and their approaches, ideas and implementation of internet policy.

Cloud computing: analysing the trade-off between user comfort and autonomy

Primavera De Filippi, Research and Studies Center of Administrative Science (CERSA/CNRS), Université Paris II (Panthéon-Assas)
PUBLISHED ON: 13 Jun 2013 DOI: 10.14763/2013.2.135

This article presents a general analysis of how user autonomy in the internet cloud is increasingly put into jeopardy by the growing comfort and efficiency of the user-interface. Although this issue has not been, thus far, explicitly addressed by the law, it is a fundamental ethical question that should be carefully assessed to guide the future deployment of cloud computing.