As researchers around the world continue to find ethical ways of using social media and other digital platforms, in most cases with a sense of urgency, the legalities and principles behind technology’s use and influence are getting more complicated. In this week's newsletter, we have focused on some of those complexities such as new regulation aimed to address the societal and economic effects of the tech industry, tech companies lobbying to influence law reform, transparency issues around information on websites, spread of conspiracy theories among WhatsApp groups and understanding and defining disinformation.
In his piece, CMT’s Co-Director Derek Wilding explains the new EU legislation that had been in development for some time now and was passed two weeks ago. As an upgrade of rules governing digital services in the EU, both the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act form a single set of new rules that aim to make online spaces safer for users by protecting their fundamental rights.
Hamish Boland-Rudder, CMT-based online editor for The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, writes about the Uber Files. His piece shows how some tech companies have influenced politicians to amend law for their benefit and of their CEOs.
From Uber, we then move to Wikipedia which recently became a centre of attention, at least in Australia, after a story published in The Australian claimed that the page for newly elected Teal independent Zoe Daniel had been flagged as potentially being created or edited ‘in return for undisclosed payments.’ This not only raises concerns about the rules of editing and conflict of interest editing, but further paves way for an already existing menace: misinformation. To discuss these issues and more, our Co-Director Monica Attard talked to Richard Cooke, a journalist, screenwriter, and author who is currently writing a cultural history on Wikipedia.
Separately, Anne Kruger writes about a new survey that finds significant differences in the Australian public views on the meaning of the term ‘misinformation’ and the lack of consideration of ‘harm’. The survey findings also highlight the need for researchers to check their assumptions that people have a shared understanding of what they consider to be ‘misinformation’.
Lastly, I pen down some concerns around the spread of conspiracy theories on WhatsApp groups, especially among older people who are more vulnerable to forwarding false information without prior verification – as I witnessed happening around me during my recent visit to Pakistan, a country that sentenced a woman to death, earlier this year, over alleged blasphemous messages sent over WhatsApp.
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Ayesha Jehangir, CMT Postdoctoral Fellow