Project description
A closer look at social media surveillance
Billions of people around the world are sharing their news and views and engaging in conversations on sites like Facebook and Twitter. While the right to freedom of expression applies in the digital world, social media platforms are under pressure to monitor content posted by users. They need to stop disinformation and remove harmful content. The EU-funded ProPA project will explore the advocacy efforts for protection of pro-democracy content and to what extent it has led to changes in digital platforms’ content moderation rules. It will investigate whether these changes resulted in a more open online civic space for pro-democracy activism. It will also check what limitations remain. The project will focus on Asian pro-democracy movements.
Objective
Digital platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, have long touted themselves as defenders of freedom of expression, yet their content moderation rules have faced global criticism, amongst others for failing to tackle authoritarian repression of dissident voices. Government trolls successfully run malicious reporting campaigns that result in the platforms removal of activists posts and accounts. Meanwhile, civil society under authoritarianism lacks means of legal recourse and can only engage in international advocacy to urge social media companies to implement safeguards. To which extent have advocacy efforts for protection of pro-democracy content led to changes in digital platforms content moderation rules? Have these changes resulted in a more open online civic space for pro-democracy activism? What limitations remain?
To address these questions and foster platform accountability for vulnerable users, I will work under Prof. Trisha Meyers supervision at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) - Centre for Digitalisation, Democracy and Innovation (CD2I) at Brussels School of Governance (BSoG) and Sam Gregorys secondment supervision at WITNESS Inc. to achieve two main R&I objectives. First, the project will build and test a theoretical model of pro-democracy platform advocacy, based on original evidence from Asian pro-democracy movements and their advocacy toward three social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram). Second, the findings will be turned into two open-access academic articles and three applied innovations, including a best practice guide for pro-democracy activists, a set of policy recommendations for social media companies, and a digital advocacy resource for social media users. I will disseminate and exploit these results via presentations at eight academic and three multi-stakeholder conferences, publications on Open Research Europe platform, and five facilitation workshops with activists and meetings with social media companies.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
- social sciences sociology governance
- social sciences media and communications
- social sciences political sciences government systems democracy
- social sciences political sciences political policies civil society
- social sciences other social sciences development studies development theories global development studies globalization
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1050 BRUSSEL
Belgium
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