[REPLAY] Webinar: Content Policy in the Age of Transparency, a Transatlantic Discussion

11 February 2022

Content governance raises many difficulties, both for digital platforms and governments. In the EU, the Digital Services Act is currently being drafted in order to ensure that platforms comply with a certain number of fundamental principles, such as fairness, transparency and freedom of expression. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act (PATA), introduced in Congress in December 2021, is designed to increase transparency and give researchers access to critical data gathered by platforms, in order to gain insight into key societal issues. At the same time, policymakers around the world are proposing their own new initiatives to regulate online content, from new transparency obligations to aid academic research to requirements to take down content at the request of state authorities. What are the implications of these changes for the governance of online content? Where should we strike the balance between making platforms accountable to democratic institutions and preventing excessive state control of the media? How can academic research into platforms’ content governance inform regulatory debates?

These and other questions were be discussed on February 21, 2022 at the webinar ‘Content Policy in the Age of Transparency: A Transatlantic Discussion’, a joint effort by Sciences Po’s Digital Governance and Sovereignty Chair and Stanford University’s Content Policy and Society Lab.

Introduction by Mathias Vicherat, Director of Sciences Po

WITH

• Nate Persily, James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and Co-Director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center

• Dominique Cardon, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Sciences Po Medialab

• Julie Owono, Executive Director, Internet Without Borders; Executive Director of the Stanford Content Policy and Society Lab; Facebook Oversight Board member

• Florence G’sell, Director of the Digital, Governance and Sovereignty Chair at Sciences Po and Professor of Private Law at University of Lorraine, author of the Chair’s study entitled “Les réseaux sociaux, entre encadrement et auto-régulation“, a preliminary version of which can be found here.

• Emmanuel Vincent, Researcher at the Sciences Po Medialab and co-author of a recent study on “Facebook’s interventions against accounts that repeatedly share misinformation“.

• Leila Morch, Research Project Coordinator, Stanford Content Policy and Society Lab

Moderator: Rachel Griffin, Research Assistant at the Digital, Governance and Sovereignty Chair and PhD candidate at Sciences Po Law School

SPEAKERS

Nate Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and Co-Director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center. He is an expert on constitutional law, voting rights and the impact of technology on political communication. He recently co-edited the book Social Media and Democracy (CUP, 2020), and helped author the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act (PATA) that was proposed in the US Congress in December 2021.

Dominique Cardon is professor of Sociology at Sciences Po and Director of the Sciences Po Medialab. His work focuses on the uses of the Internet and the transformations of the digital public space. He has conducted research on social media, online identity, amateur self-production and cooperation, and governance of large networks. His current research focuses on digital information and web algorithms. He has notably published La démocratie Internet (Paris, Seuil/La République des idées, 2010), A quoi rêvent les algorithmes. Nos vies à l’heure des big data (Paris, Seuil/République des idées, 2015) and Culture numérique (Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2016).

Julie Owono is the Executive Director of Internet Without Borders and Executive Director of the Stanford Content Policy and Society Lab. She is also an inaugural member of the Facebook Oversight Board and a member of the Global Partnership on AI.

Florence G’sell is the Head of the Digital, Governance and Sovereignty Chair at Sciences Po and Professor of Law at the University of Lorraine. She recently edited the book Le Big Data et le Droit (Dalloz, 2020) and published Justice numérique (Dalloz, 2021). She is the author of the Chair’s study entitled “Les réseaux sociaux, entre encadrement et auto-régulation“, a preliminary version of which can be found here.

Leila Morch is the Research Project Coordinator of the Stanford Content Policy and Society Lab and a former parliamentary assistant in the French National Assembly. She is also the founder of the Francophone Federation of the Future.

Emmanuel Vincent is a researcher at the Sciences Po Medialab. He studies the influence of web platforms and the impact of their policies against misinformation.. He is also the founder of the climate science association Science Feedback. He recently co-authored a study on “Facebook’s interventions against accounts that repeatedly share misinformation“.

Rachel Griffin is a PhD candidate at the Sciences Po Law School, where she is researching European social media regulation and its implications for structural social inequalities. She also works as a research assistant at the Digital Governance and Sovereignty Chair and teaches a course on social media law at Sciences Po Reims.