We are currently experiencing an information revolution where traditional gatekeepers of knowledge, such as librarians, journalists, and government officials, have been replaced by technological gatekeepers like search engines, AI chatbots, and social media feeds. The new gatekeepers, however, are primarily motivated by profit and serving their shareholders, unlike their predecessors who were accountable to the public. Fortunately, the European Union is taking a bold step to address this issue through the implementation of the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, which aim to check the power of big tech.
Starting on August 25th, these new regulations will require tech platforms to be more responsive to the public in various ways. Users will have the right to appeal content removals, choose algorithms, and prevent microtargeting based on sensitive data like religion, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Additionally, large tech platforms will need to conduct audits on their algorithms to determine their impact on democracy, human rights, and the well-being of minors and other users. This marks a significant change as companies will now be held accountable for the harms enabled by their platforms.
One crucial aspect that is yet to be decided by the European Union is whether journalists will have access to the data collected by tech platforms. Journalists have traditionally played a vital role in exposing harm, allowing researchers and regulators to take action. However, obtaining data from platforms has become increasingly difficult, with Facebook shutting down accounts of researchers and Twitter limiting user access to tweets. For transparency and accountability to prevail, it is essential to support journalists who are at the front lines of uncovering how tech platforms are weaponized or enabled by despots, trolls, spies, marketers, and hate mobs.
Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and the head of Rappler, a leading news outlet in the Philippines, has been instrumental in analyzing how social media has been misused by Filipino leaders to spread disinformation, manipulate public opinion, and attack independent journalism. However, with limited data access due to platform restrictions, it poses a challenge for Ressa and her colleagues to continue their accountability journalism efforts.
To address this issue, Ressa and other journalists have called on the European Commission to provide real-time data access to journalists. Daphne Keller from Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center emphasizes that granting journalists and researchers automated tools to collect publicly available platform data is crucial for transparency. This approach ensures transparency without relying on the platforms themselves, who may have conflicting interests.
Tech platforms often resist transparency requests, citing user privacy concerns. However, it is ironic since their business models rely on mining and monetizing user data. The data journalists require is already public, so user privacy is not at stake. What journalists lack is access to substantial quantities of public data from tech platforms to analyze trends effectively. Without such access, we are left with isolated anecdotes rather than a comprehensive understanding of statistical significance.
Journalists play a vital role in documenting history. If we cannot observe the activities on major speech platforms worldwide, history will be written to benefit the platforms rather than the public interest.
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