European public values in a global online society
Channel: Crowd Expedition
Date: 2018-04-25

Keynote by José van Dijck at the workshop: “Platform Economy: Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Public Policy Perspectives”

"Online digital platforms, which are overwhelmingly American-based and operated, have penetrated every sector of American and Western-European societies, disrupting markets and labor relations,
circumventing institutions, and transforming social and civic practices. The emerging ‘platform society’ involves an intense struggle between competing ideological systems and contesting
societal actors—market, government and civil society—raising important questions like: Who is or should be responsible and accountable for anchoring public values in a platform society? Public
values include of course privacy, accuracy, safety, and security, but they also pertain to broader societal effects, such as fairness, accessibility, democratic control, and accountability. Public values
and the common good are the very stakes in the struggle over the platformization of societies around the globe. This lecture concentrates on the position of European (private and public)
interests vis-à-vis the interests of an American online ecosystem, driven by a handful of high-tech corporations (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) that have become global data mining
companies. While fights over regulation play out at various local and national levels, they cannot be seen apart from the power clashes between global high-tech companies and (supra-)national
governments. At the heart of the online media’s industry’s surge is the battle over information control: who owns the data generated by online social activities? Particularly in the European
context, governments can be proactive in negotiating public values on behalf of citizens and consumers."

Organized by:
Koen Frenken, Utrecht University

Sponsored by:
Utrecht University, Strategic Theme Institutions for Open Societies
NWO Nationale Wetenschapsagenda, Route Op Weg Naar Veerkrachtige Samenlevingen