CDT CEO Alexandra Reeve Givens Pens Piece for Zocalo on Democracy and the Digital Public Sphere
Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) CEO Alexandra Reeve Givens recently authored a contribution to Zocalo’s collection of essays, What is the Future of the Digital Public Sphere?
Reeve Givens’ piece – entitled “It All Depends on Democracy” – focuses on the importance of a rights-respecting, democratic vision for governing technology – as well as essential changes lawmakers can make to foster a free, democratic digital public sphere. A portion of the text has been pasted below.
From the feature:
In many places around the world, the digital public square is just a fiction. Internet shutdowns are on the rise, with governments restricting access to websites they perceive as a threat, or shutting down internet services altogether in specific regions or around elections. There were 187 documented government-backed internet shutdowns in 2022. Meanwhile, journalists, advocates, and ordinary citizens are subject to increasingly pervasive digital surveillance. For example, the notorious Pegasus software was used to spy on the communications of at least 189 journalists, 85 human rights defenders, as well as judges, lawyers, and union leaders in 20 countries such as India, Hungary, and Morocco from 2016 to 2021.
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The brief explains that Section 230’s liability protections are essential to enable free expression online and they extend to the use of automated systems to engage to rank and order content as part of traditional publishing activities.
