ITeG Ring Lecture: "Parliaments for the Platforms? The Limits and Potentials of Democracy and Self-Determination on Digital Services."

In the ITeG Ring Lecture "Digital Society - A Shaping Task," on December 21, 2022, Prof. Dr. Matthias C. Kettemann will provide insights on the topic "Parliaments for the Platforms? The limits and potentials of democracy and self-determination on digital services".

Matthias C. Kettemann is Professor of Innovation, Theory and Philosophy of Law at the Institute for Theory and Future of Law at the University of Innsbruck. He is also Research Program Leader and Senior Researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans Bredow Institute, Hamburg; Research Group Leader and Research Project Leader at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Berlin; Head of Section at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law; and Member of the Board and Research Group Leader at the Sustainable Computing Lab, Vienna University of Economics and Business. Prof. Kettemann continues to be an associated researcher at the Hamburg Sub-Institute of the Research Institute for Social Cohesion, an associated researcher and convener of the Frankfurt Internet Colloquium at the research network "The Formation of Normative Orders" at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, and an external associated member of the research network "Human Factor in Digital Transformation" (HFDT) at Karl Franzens University Graz.

Summary of his presentation:

Platforms set rules, platforms enforce these rules (including through algorithmic systems), and platforms sit in judgment on the application of these rules. Their power, however, is usually not subjected to "checks and balances". How is this seemingly pre-modern disposition of rights and obligations to be legitimized? Ways are beginning to emerge to compensate for the legitimacy deficits of the online order. These can either amount to increasing civil society's influence on platform governance through transparency, consultation, and participation. The other approach seeks to provide a rule-of-law response and subject platform governance to the same rule-of-law principles. Against this backdrop, the paper analyzes recent "parliamentarization" tendencies of platform governance: a large social network has established an oversight board to help with content decisions and algorithmic recommendations. The same social network is experimenting with deliberative processes at scale. A game label is experimenting with player councils to help programmers* make exciting game design decisions. The advisory board of German public television wants to set up a citizens' panel to have more influence on programming decisions; and the world's largest online knowledge platform has been letting users (and user-editors) decide on content conflicts since its inception. Can the platforms learn democracy here?

The lectures take place online (via Zoom). The link for the Zoom meeting as well as the meeting ID can be found on the following website: www.uni-kassel.de/go/iteg-lectures.