As a Policy & Advocacy Manager at AlgorithmWatch, John Albert covers ADM in the public sphere, especially the subjects platform regulation and legislative processes in the EU (e.g. the Digital Services Act, DSA). Before turning his eye to digital governance, John worked as a visual journalist and also produced documentary films. He holds master’s degrees in Public Policy from the Hertie School in Berlin and journalism from Columbia University in New York.
Public scrutiny is essential to understand the risks that personalized recommender systems pose to society. The DSA’s new transparency regime is a promising step forward, but we still need external, adversarial audits to hold platforms accountable.
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An initial analysis shows that platforms have done little to “empower the research community” despite promises made last June under the EU’s revamped Code of Practice on Disinformation.
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Thanks to the Digital Services Act (DSA), public interest researchers in the EU have a new legal framework to access and study internal data held by major tech platforms. What does this framework look like, and how can it be put into practice?
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Facebook is quietly dismantling CrowdTangle, a tool that academics, watchdog organizations and journalists rely on to expose disinformation and other problematic content on the platform. The move contradicts the company’s commitments to give researchers better access to data.
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A political agreement on the Digital Services Act (DSA) reached late last week may set a major blueprint for protecting people’s rights online and holding Big Tech companies accountable. It will do so in part by forcing platforms to be more transparent about the design and function of the algorithmic systems which are core to their business practices.
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The plenary vote establishes the European Parliament's position ahead of the trilogue negotiations with the Council of the EU and the Commission, which will start next week. Despite progress by the Parliament on issues like platform transparency, it is far from guaranteed that this progress will be enshrined in the final law.
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