Descrizione del progetto
Uno sguardo più attento alla sorveglianza dei social media
Miliardi di persone in tutto il mondo condividono notizie e opinioni e partecipano a conversazioni su siti come Facebook e Twitter. Sebbene il diritto alla libertà di espressione si applichi al mondo digitale, le piattaforme di social media sono sottoposte a pressioni rispetto al monitoraggio dei contenuti pubblicati dagli utenti. Devono fermare la disinformazione e rimuovere i contenuti dannosi. Il progetto ProPA, finanziato dall’UE, esaminerà i tentativi di sensibilizzazione per la protezione dei contenuti a favore della democrazia, per capire in che misura abbiano comportato cambiamenti nelle regole di moderazione dei contenuti delle piattaforme digitali. Verificherà se questi cambiamenti abbiano prodotto uno spazio civico online più aperto per l’attivismo a favore della democrazia. Verificherà inoltre quali limitazioni permangono. Il progetto si concentrerà sui movimenti asiatici a favore della democrazia.
Obiettivo
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 Meyer’s supervision at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) - Centre for Digitalisation, Democracy and Innovation (CD2I) at Brussels School of Governance (BSoG) and Sam Gregory’s 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.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Meccanismo di finanziamento
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinatore
1050 Bruxelles / Brussel
Belgio