ONLINE FIRST! This article by @antoniskalog.bsky.social, @richardfletcher.bsky.social, and @rasmuskleis.bsky.social compares inequalities in #news use in traditional offline and #online news #media environments over time among #internet users in six countries.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
The digital news media environment does not only reproduce old class structures. It reinforces them
That is the key finding in new paper led by @antoniskalog.bsky.social analyzing social inequalities in offline and online news use across 6 countries over 10 years www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
"What do you do in a world where the technology never centers you, the platforms never pay you, and there is no guarantee of visibility? Many newsrooms in the Global Majority have been living in this world for years" @jaemark.co writes, others could learn from them. www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/as-a...
“Users don't want more control over their own experience. [They] want to have control over the experience of others [so] no matter how much content moderation I offer, and customize, and add different layers to, they're unlikely to be satisfied.”
Sharp observation from @aaron.bsky.team #PlatGovNet
New report out on use of and perception of generative AI in Denmark, documenting rapid growth in use, more optimism than pessimism, but very differentiated expectations across different sector - with reservations about AI use by public authorities, media, politicians caisa.dk/forskning/ge...
Several of the political actors have explicitly raised elements of the DSA (e.g. trusted flaggers) or name-checked the EU. (Though I am sure many also have concerns of ToS-based moderation.)
The quote is from the first report of the European Board for Digital Services in cooperation with the Commission on the DSA and systemic risks. Read it here: digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/digi... 5/5
The question of how we govern online spaces, and balance between different priorities, including risks versus fundamental rights, is not (only) a US versus EU debate, let alone a 'platforms versus everybody else' discussion. It is (also) a debate we need to handle in Europe. 4/5
But concerns over so-called “censorship” are expressed inside the EU, by EU political actors. We have seen complains from CDU (part of the EPP), from RN (part of PfE), from members of the ECR. These right-wing groups contain about half the members of the European Parliament. 3/5
I do not personally see evidence the DSA has led to political censorship. I share the concern of civil society that over-moderation /by platforms/ is a risk. I agree with the European Board for Digital Services and the Commission that the DSA can enable fundamental rights. 2/5
“Over-moderation [by platforms designated under the DSA] may negatively affect civic discourse and create risks of negative effects on the fundamental right to freedom of expression and information.”
That’s not a quote from J.D. Vance or Elon Musk. It is a quote from an EU report 1/5
Content moderation may be basically “unsolvable from a centralized standpoint, because there's no agreement on what is the problem for which [it] would be the solution. The way we deal with this at Reddit is by devolving the authority to take down content to the users”. Jessica Ashooh/PlatGovNet2025
Anyone interested in platform & AI governance check out the third annual PlatGov conference Mon/Tue - all online, free & truly global 🌍🌎🌏⌨️💽🤓
Here’s the program:
platgov.net/assets/site/...
A moment where some are trying distance the United States and Europe from one another is one where I am glad to double down on things that many of us have in common across the Atlantic, including a long-standing commitment to a culture of free inquiry, also when it is inconvenient to those in power.
This Thanksgiving, professionally, I’m thankful for the opportunity to join the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at @harvard.edu as a Faculty Affiliate shorensteincenter.org/person/rasmu...
One week till we kick off PlatGovNet 2025, with civil society, industry leaders, practitioners, and scores of researchers coming together to discuss platform governance. Proud that @ucph.bsky.social can help host this online conference.
Register here to join us: ucph-ku.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Take past systems in DK. During the cold war a Moscow-friendly paper got subsidies on equal footing w/everyone else who qualified. Was that supporting dangerous propaganda or a tolerable result of a system that maximize for pluralism + minimize regulatory/political judgment of editorial content? 2/2
Agree no model is perfect, or will work everywhere. The 8 criteria for eligibility are a mix of objective criteria and criteria that will require at least a partially qualitative judgement by the independent media council. But none of them are "danger" or "propaganda" which are very subjective 1/2
What we can ask for is that they are honest about what they want and are willing to do - clarity on that rests on rivals challenging them, and civil society, journalists, and researchers continuing to independently assess priorities and whether words and actions are aligned. 4/4
Whatever you think about where public money is being invested, what the policy priorities are, we need to be clear: these decisions are taken by EU politicians - Merz, Macron, von der Leyen, Weber & co. They have a mandate, and should be held to account for how they use it. 3/4
Today, a Digital Omnibus being launched that European Digital Rights warns risks weakening "core EU laws like the GDPR and AI Act, and represent the biggest rollback of digital rights in EU history". 2/4
Yesterday, a "Digital Sovereignty Summit" in Berlin that Markus Beckedahl described as "largely a farce" and where Bruna Martins dos Santos described a "feeling [of] utter disappointment" in civil society. 1/4
Interested in platform governance, a defining issue of our time?
Dec 1-2, PlatGovNet is hosting its 2025 online conference. 60+ presentations, conversations with civil society, Reddit, Bluesky. It is free to attend.
Program platgov.net/assets/site/...
Registration ucph-ku.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
"These are all sensible, incremental proposals. [But] if public authorities really want to act they need to commit significant funding. It’s not clear the Democracy Shield represents a real qualitative jump in terms of money". Spoke with RTE about the EU's Democracy Shield www.rte.ie/news/2025/11...
“I have always felt it was important to take research out of academic journals and into the public sphere, to share with people what research has to offer, how it can help them make their own choices”.
Wonderful lecture from Sun Sun Lim as she accepts her honorary professorship at U of Copenhagen.
It is based on the work we did in a commission reviewing media subsidies in Denmark I had the privilege of chairing.
We were tasked with developing possible models for the future, and I have summarized key bits of our work here in the hope it will be useful elsewhere too. 2/2
What should be distributed to who, how, on what basis, why, and so what?
These are six basic questions that must be answered if news is to receive public subsidies.
In this piece for @reutersinstitute.bsky.social I outline a possible approach
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/taxes-n... 1/2
Blaming it all on bullying may give them some temporary political cover. But the buck on this still stops in Europe, and we are the ones who will have to live with the consequences. 4/4
Maybe the Commission is seeking to roll back some of these rules because there are key people in Brussels and capitals across the continent who want to, rather than because someone in D.C. or on the West Coast want to? 3/4
It is obvious that there is a geopolitical dimension to this. But the EU and its biggest member states are not typically push-overs on the things that are actually important to them? 2/4
