Information democracy
Powerful companies and governments control the way the internet and new technologies are deployed. These actors blur the lines on corporate power in ways that have tremendous impact on people and democracies. The dominant business model of ‘Big tech’ platforms is based on surveillance, polarization and power imbalances. This ‘surveillance capitalism’ has had a global impact on democracy. For example, state and private actors can use the internet and technologies to spread political disinformation, to manipulate electoral results, to attack human rights defenders and to limit civic space.
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Facebook starts to increase transparency in political ads in the Balkans
Facebook has announced that it will expand its transparency system and confirmation of authenticity of ads about elections and politics starting from mid-March. Namely, Facebook will cover 32 additional countries, including Serbia and North Macedonia where the elections are to take place very soon.
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Who should decide what we see online?
Online platforms rank and moderate content without letting us know how and why they do it. There is a pressing need for transparency of the practices and policies of these online platforms.
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Can we rely on machines making decisions for us on illegal content?
While automation is necessary for handling a vast amount of content shared by users, it makes mistakes that can be far-reaching for your rights and the well-being of society. Most of us like to discuss our ideas and opinions on silly and serious issues, share happy and sad moments, and play together on the internet. […]
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Copyright stakeholder dialogues: Compromise, frustration, dead end?
The second phase of the stakeholder dialogues on Article 17 of the Copyright Directive finished in December 2019. The two meetings of the third phase, focusing on the provisions of Article 17, were held on 16 January and 10 February 2020.
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The impact of competition law on your digital rights
This is the first article in a series dealing with competition law and Big Tech. The aim of the series is to look at what competition law has achieved when it comes to protecting our digital rights, where it has failed to deliver on its promises, and how to remedy this. This series will first […]
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#PrivacyCamp20 happened
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Stalked by your digital doppelganger?
In this fourth installment of EDRi’s facial recognition and fundamental rights series, we explore what could happen if facial recognition collides with data-hungry business models and 24/7 surveillance.
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Booklet: Activist guide to the Brussels Maze 3.0
Exciting news 🤩 A new edition of our popular Activist guide to the Brussels Maze is out! The purpose of this booklet is to provide activists with an insight into where EU legislative and non-legislative Proposals come from, and what can be achieved at each stage of the legislative process.
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Copyright: Open letter asking for transparency in implementing guidelines
Today, on 15 January 2020, EDRi joined 41 other human rights and users’ rights organisations to demand increased transparency during the implementation of the EU copyright Directive. Specifically, the open letter asks the European Commission to publish any draft guidelines when available and to include concerns raised by the signing organisations during the stakeholder dialogues […]
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Copyright stakeholder dialogues: Filters can’t understand context
On 16 December 2019, the European Commission held the fourth meeting of the Copyright Directive Article 17 stakeholder dialogues. During the “first phase”, meetings focused on the practices in different industries such as music, games, software, audiovisual and publishing. This meeting was the last of what the Commission called the “second phase”, where meetings were […]
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Online content moderation: Where does the Commission stand?
The informal discussions (trilogues) between the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission are progressing on the Terrorist Content Regulation (TCO, aka “TERREG”). While users’ safeguards and rights-protective measures remain the Parliament’s red lines, the Commission presses the co-legislators to adopt what was a pre-elections public relations exercise, rather than […]
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Spain: New law threatens internet freedoms
On 5 November 2019, the Royal Decree-Law 14/2019 that had been adopted on 31 October was published in the Spanish Official State Gazette (BOE). This was just five days before the general elections that would take place on 10 November, under an undefined “exceptionality and urgency”, and justified by the “challenges posed by new technologies […]
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