Making sense of our connected world
A Guide to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2019
In November, the United Nations Global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) comes to Germany for the first time. Following the motto “One World. One Net. One Vision”, researchers and politicians from…
Busted! 50 internet myths and why they are wrong
Yes, laws matter online. No, criminals don’t all go free. And no, privacy isn’t dead – yet. As the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2019 approaches, Matthias C. Kettemann (HIIG and…
“Robot judges” without training?
Discussing the implementation of automated decision making systems as savior of overburdened legal decision makers is en vogue. But if employed instead of human decision makers and with rising complexity…
Endangered privacy in the digital society
In his new book, Armin Nassehi makes the attempt to substatiate digital technology in the structure of modern society itself. He develops the thesis that certain social regularities, structures and…
Don’t let the numbers get to you
Her widely received essay “Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy” at the turn of the millennium made Tiziana Terranova one of the most influential voices on the digital…
How an online order fights fragmentation
The internet will not break apart. While centrifugal forces contribute to the emergence of normative froth, frictions and fractures, technical invariants of the internet exercise defragmentation forces. But that’s not…
Surveillance
The state monitors its citizens, Internet companies monitor their users – and finally we monitor ourselves and each other. Who is monitoring whom and why? What positive effects can surveillance have and when does it become a danger for a democratic society? Questions like these were posed by students of the Humboldt University of Berlin in the seminar “Tracing Surveillance – On the Trace of Surveillance” led by HIIG researcher Thomas Christian Bächle. In the contributions to this dossier they discuss their views on state and economic power and surveillance technologies.
How COVID-19 impacts digital technologies
The current lockdown is boosting online activity – everything is increasingly shifting to the digital sphere. In this dossier we ask if, how and why the Corona pandemic will affect key subjects of digital technologies. What does this mean for the regulation of content on digital platforms? How is Covid-19 activating the digital society? How does it transform our online culture? How safe are tracing apps? What lessons can be learned regarding cyber security? Busy times for our researchers!
