Making sense of our connected world
Navigating platform power: from European elections to the regulatory future
Looking back at the European elections in June 2024, this blog post takes stock of the Digital Services Act’s effect in terms of navigating platform power.
European elections and digital policy: German party positions
To what extent are German parties addressing digital policy in the European elections? A glance at the election programmes reveals different priorities.
Integrating gender and inclusivity in digital cultural policies: insights from Berlin and Barcelona
Could Berlin and Barcelona’s integrative approach to digitalisation serve as a blueprint for a new European cultural policy in the digital age?
More Power to the People: How Platform Councils Can Make Online Communication More Democratic
Companies dominate digital spaces, impacting public debate. Could Platform Councils make online communication more democratic?
Teaching Norms to Large Language Models – The Next Frontier of Hybrid Governance
This blogpost explores the ways in which we can teach norms to LLMs and introduces the concept of hybrid governance.
Content moderation on digital platforms: A more intensive horizontal effect of freedom of expression?
To what extent should private companies be bound by freedom of expression? Investigating a more intensive horizontal effect of fundamental rights.
Surveillance
The state monitors its citizens, Internet companies monitor their users – and finally we monitor ourselves and each other. Who is monitoring whom and why? What positive effects can surveillance have and when does it become a danger for a democratic society? Questions like these were posed by students of the Humboldt University of Berlin in the seminar “Tracing Surveillance – On the Trace of Surveillance” led by HIIG researcher Thomas Christian Bächle. In the contributions to this dossier they discuss their views on state and economic power and surveillance technologies.
How COVID-19 impacts digital technologies
The current lockdown is boosting online activity – everything is increasingly shifting to the digital sphere. In this dossier we ask if, how and why the Corona pandemic will affect key subjects of digital technologies. What does this mean for the regulation of content on digital platforms? How is Covid-19 activating the digital society? How does it transform our online culture? How safe are tracing apps? What lessons can be learned regarding cyber security? Busy times for our researchers!
