Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut
HBI’s Private Ordering Observatory starts "Private Ordering Perspectives", a series of talks on how to create good rules for better private ordering. The series starts on 10 June with the first three dates at lunch time and will continue in July and September.
2020 has substantially altered how we think of platforms – and their role in governing online speech. At the start of 2021, leading internet platform researchers have created a new Observatory for private content governance by platforms at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut: the Private Ordering Observatory (PrObs). After intensive consultations, the PrObs is now ready to start its first series of workshops on the key question of who gets to say who gets to speak online – and under what conditions.
Dr. Matthias C. Kettemann, head of the research programme on private rule-making in online settings at the HBI, says that this workshops series “is designed to make sense of the realities of content moderation and the private ordering built around it, and confirms the role of PrObs as a convener and space of debate for top-notch researchers from around the world.”
Dr. David Morar, Data Policy Postdoctoral Fellow at the New York University Steinhardt School and Visiting Fellow at the HBI says that “the platform space is one where disparate places provide specific and useful, but limited and siloed access to information. This workshop series is looking to remedy that, and to build strong networks of knowledge on good platform governance”.
Talks in June, July and September 2021
Private Ordering Perspectives is a series of online talks spread out across the months of June, July and September 2021, each month with its own perspective. The three questions that the series is built on each tackle a general framework of private ordering, while simultaneously highlighting a particular case.
Query I: Who gets to speak? What deplatforming can teach us – June
Query II: What can we speak? The dealing with disinformation tells us – July
Query III: Who makes the rules? Designing for better speech governance – September
The first question in June is a fundamental one, “Who gets to speak?”
On June 10th, 1–2 CEST, Prof. Maura Conway of Dublin City University will talk to us about deplatforming and why one size does not fit all.
Paper: Maura Conway (2020) Routing the Extreme Right, The RUSI Journal, 165:1, 108-113
On June 17th, 12–1 CEST, Prof. Richard Rogers of the University of Amsterdam will talk to us about what happens after deplatforming.
Paper: Richard Rogers (2020) Deplatforming: Following extreme Internet celebrities to Telegram and alternative social media, European Journal of Communication, 35:3, 213–229.
On June 24th, 1–2 CEST, Prof. Elizabeth Pearson of Royal Holloway University will talk about how deplatforming can be seen as a positive by those deplatformed.
Paper: Elizabeth Pearson (2018) Online as the New Frontline: Affect, Gender, and ISIS-Take-Down on Social Media, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 41:11, 850-874
In July, the Private Ordering Perspectives series will feature the second fundamental question, “What can we speak?” and will focus primarily on the case of disinformation with three experts providing thought-provoking lectures on specific actions, interventions and responsibilities surrounding misinformation online.
In September, the Private Ordering Perspectives series will tackle the final of three questions, “Who makes the rules?”. More specifically, the final of the three parts of the series will look at who, how and why designs rules related to online speech.
Query II & Query III events in July and September to be announced soon.
Please register for the series of events here. The access data will be sent to you shortly before the respective event.
For more about the Private Ordering Observatory (PrObs), see PrObs.org.
