Digital Rights

"The state of content moderation for the LGBTIQA+ community and the role of the EU Digital Services Act" by researcher Christina Dinar, focuses on the challenges faced by the queer community in Europe and offers detailed recommendations for the forthcoming EU Digital Services Act.

Gendered disinformation is a form of violence particularly used against politically active women: the weaponisation of gendered stereotypes to attack and undermine women’s position in public life. How can we improve responses to gendered disinformation online? What can platforms do better? What government regulation may be needed, and are the current proposals on the table sufficient?

Disinformation and misinformation thrive in uncertainty and secrecy. While growing awareness within the European Union of the threat posed by malign disinformation campaigns to undermine support for democratic values, and the EU project as a whole, has elicited a number of robust responses, these have mostly targeted external actors. Addressing threats from within Member States poses a more acute challenge, one that will require great thoughtfulness and delicacy to resolve, and require a unanimous collective effort.

The book #FakeYou shows that public and legislative policies used in the fight against disinformation, which have been pursued both in Spain and in other countries because of (or rather, with the excuse of) the so-called “new” phenomenon of fake news, often actually serve to distract from the real solution.

The EU and the US have to navigate bilateral differences and work with like-minded countries to formulate a response to China’s techno-authoritarianism. This effort should go beyond industrial policy towards shaping a positive and inclusive digital agenda.

The concept of ‘digital sovereignty’ has become more prevalent over the last few years, although its meaning remains diffuse. Between Chinese techno-authoritarianism and the U.S. model of surveillance capitalism, Europe is heading towards a third way.

The project “Fostering Democratic Resilience in the Digital Age” by the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Tel Aviv office, aims to promote dialogue, exchange of knowledge and collaboration between researchers and practitioners from Israel and Germany to enhance democratic resilience in the context of the changing media and information landscape in the digital age.

Europe is about to get a new digital law. It will change the way Google, Facebook and Amazon do business. The mechanisms that allow them to make billions are polarising society. We need robust new rules to protect our democracy.