Digital self-determination/Digital Self-Determination- An Approximation

This module introduces the concept of digital-self determination and explores its purpose and use in different contexts, highlighting examples from ongoing policy debates and initiatives. It will also discuss how digital self-determination relates to concepts such as digital autonomy, digital sovereignty, etc. The module seeks to create a working definition of concept and it’s dimensions or facets.

Learning Materials

• Susser, D. & Roessler, B. & Nissenbaum, H. (2019). Technology, autonomy, and manipulation. Internet Policy Review, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.14763/2019.2.1410
• Weinberg L., (2017) “Rethinking Privacy: A Feminist Approach to Privacy Rights after Snowden”, Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 12(3). p.5-20. doi: https://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.258

Video Sparks

These videos are not meant to comprehensively cover the topics. Instead, these videos are meant to spark a conversation about the ideas contained within. They often contain questions or different lenses from which to explore the week's topic. Viewers should look to the videos for ideas and from there, explore possible on their own, relevant research, videos, government documents, reports, etc that can further enhance their understanding.

Speaker	Wolfgang Schulz	Mark Findlay	Nydia Remolina	Sabelo Mhlambi	Lorrayne Porciuncula & Bertrand De La Chapelle
Video
Video Summation	Wolfgang Schulz provides an overview of the concept of digital self-determination in its multifaceted complexity. Additionally, Prof. Schulz explains the significance of the German Federal Constitutional Court’s ‘Census’ Decision of 1983, in which the term “informational self-determination” was first used.	Mark Findlay & Nydia Remolina share their visionary approach to the self and the digital space that moves forward the research on digital self-determination beyond the existing paradigms of data property and data subjects toward an account centered on communal duties, responsibilities, and obligations		Sabelo Mhlambi - invites us to contemplate how the community enables self-autonomy, and the role of language and digital relationships in the continuous process of becoming a person by enriching other people’s lives and personhood.	Lorrayne Porciuncula & Bertrand De La Chapelle - help us historicize and reframe our conversation beyond the usual dichotomies we tend to use when theorizing on data sovereignty and self-determination.

Learning Artifacts

For this module, participants are asked to build out an annotated bibliography of works that would be useful in helping to further study and write about this topic. While there is the Digital Self-Determination bibliography in full, here are some of the highlights from that list.

Citation	Description	Contributor
Bodó, B. (2020) “Mediated trust: A theoretical framework to address the trustworthiness of technological trust mediators”. New Media & Society 00(0), pp. 1-23.	This article introduces the new theoretical concept of technology-mediated trust to analyze the role of complex techno-social assemblages in trust production and distrust management	Alexandra Giannopoulou
Budd, B., Midzain-Gobin, L., Gabel, C., & Goodman, N. (2019). Digital Democracy and Self-Determination: Lessons from First Nations in Canada. Digitization & Challenges to Democracy. McMaster University: Institute on Globalisation and the Human Condition, pp. 14-18.	This article looks into the ways in which these tools [digital technologies] have shaped political mobilisation for the marginalised First Nations in Canada who have suffered through a long history of exclusion and disempowerment.	Samreen Mushtaq
Coleman, D. (2019) “Digital Colonialism: The 21st Century Scramble for Africa through the Extraction and Control of User Data and the Limitations of Data Protection Laws”. 24 MICH. J. RACE & L, pp. 417-439.	It raises the questions: what happens in a world where there are lean policies guiding data? By examining the data protection laws in Kenya, the author shows what needs to be done for a policy to protect its people.	Temitayo Olofinlua
Erichsen, L. & Prewitt, M. (2020). “Solving the Social Dilemma” and “The Data Freedom Act”.	The data coalition model proposed by the authors emphasizes the interpersonal/relational nature of data, and the need for models that move beyond individualistic conceptions of data ownership.	Constanza Vidal Bustamante
Mittelstadt, B. (2017). “From Individual to Group Privacy in Big Data Analytics”. Philos. Technol. (2017) 30, pp. 475-494.	While very fascinating, the article also addresses some of the very significant hurdles to a robust concept of group privacy, namely the instability of algorithmically created group identities.	Christian Thönnes

Activity

For this module's activity, we want are looking to expand our understanding of digital self-determination. So when the program ran, we encouraged participants to seek out research and information about the topic. Since this is a never-ending task, we encourage people using this material to continue to contribute to our collected works.

Goal:  To continue to develop the Digital Self-Determination bibliography by finding additional works on digital self-determination and providing citations and brief summaries about said research.

Format:  Each contribution should include the following:

• APA citation of the resource
• Type of Resource:  (Primary, Secondary, or Tertiary)
• Brief summary of the resource
• Name Contributor (if you choose to include it)

Here is an example of what that would look like when you add it to the page:

Bozdag, E., & Van Den Hoven, J. (2015). Breaking the filter bubble: democracy and design. Ethics and information technology, 17(4), 249-265. Type of Resource: Secondary Summary: The authors review different conceptions of democracy (liberal, deliberative, republican/contestatory, agonistic/inclusive) and the implications of “filter bubbles” (the reduced availability of divergent opinions/realities that we encounter online as a consequence of personalization algorithms) for each of them. They argue that the current set of tools and algorithms that tech designers have adopted to guard against filter bubbles reflect the values upheld by some models of democracy (e.g., liberal democracy’s emphasis on self-determination), but not all models of democracy (e.g., the agonistic model’s call for the inclusion of minorities in the public debate.) Contributor: Vidal Bustamante, Constanza

Location: Please place any entry in the proper spot based on alphabetical order of the first author's last name.

Length: Add as many as you want but we typically looked for 3-5 contributions.

If you are exploring this course on your own, we encourage you to create artifacts to share on Twitter or other social media platforms using the following hashtag: #DigitalSelfDetermination

Speaker Bios

Sabelo Mhlambi

Sabelo Mhlambi is the founder of Bantucracy a public interest organization that focuses on ubuntu ethics and technology, a Technology & Human Rights Fellow at Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, and a Fellow at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society. Mhlambi's work is at the intersection of human rights, ethics, culture, and technology and emphasizes global south perspectives in AI policy.

In particular, Mr Mhlambi's research examines the human rights implications of algorithmic technology on marginalized communities and proposes a new ethical framework for governing the creation and use of Artificial Intelligence in ways that maximize social progress and harmony. Mhlambi's work broadens the conversation on Ethics and AI by introducing non-western frameworks for examining the effects automated decision making technology and has been used to advise African governments on Ethical AI policy. Mr Mhlambi's work is also supplemented by more than a decade building large scale software systems, which include Natural Language Processing for African languages, open-source anti-censorship software, and content recommendation systems.

Lorrayne Porciuncula

Lorrayne Porciuncula is the Director of the Data & Jurisdiction Program of the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network. Her professional and academic experience has been focused on issues around data, Internet governance, infrastructure regulation, and communication policy. Prior to joining the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network, she worked at the OECD (2014-2020) as the Strategic Advisor for Digital Economy Policy, coordinating issues related to data governance, artificial intelligence, and blockchain, and leading the production of several reports and country studies related to connectivity, infrastructure regulation, technology convergence, and inclusion.

Lorrayne has acted as the OECD focal point and speaker at high-level international meetings and fora such as the IGF, UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development (UN-BBCom), APT, UN-ESCAP, ECLAC, and EQUALS. Prior to the OECD, Lorrayne worked as an economist at the ITU, in the Secretariat of the UN-BBCom (2012-2014).  Lorrayne is an affiliate to the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, conducting research on data for development. She holds a Master's degree in Development Economics from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Switzerland, and an International Relations bachelor's degree from the University of Brasilia (UnB), Brazil.

Wolfgang Schulz

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulz is director of the Hans-Bredow-Institut for Media Research and has the university professorship "Media Law and Public Law including Theoretical Foundations” at the Faculty of Law at Universität Hamburg. In February 2012, he was also appointed director at Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society in Berlin.

Wolfgang Schulz is a member of the Committee of Experts on Internet Intermediaries (MSI-NET) of the European Council and has been elected chairman thereof. He is also chairman of the expert committee “Information and Communication” and, thus, board member of the German Commission for UNESCO. Furthermore, he will serve on the advisory board of the Law & Technology Centre of Hong Kong University.

His work emphasises the freedom of communication, problems of legal regulation with regard to media contents, questions of law in new media, above all in digital television, and the legal bases of journalism, but also the jurisprudential bases of freedom of communication and the implications of the changing public sphere on law.

Nydia Remolina

Nydia Remolina is a Research Associate at the SMU Centre for AI and Data Governance and Adjunct Faculty at Singapore Management University. Her main areas of work and academic research include financial regulation, capital markets, banking law, fintech, digital ethics, AI governance, and the intersection of law and technology. She has taught or delivered lectures at several institutions in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Nydia has been an instructor for the Global Certificate Program jointly organized by Harvard Law School and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and has been invited to speak about fintech and financial regulation at various international organizations and regulators, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Nydia has also acted as a Senior Advisor to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and she worked at Sullivan & Cromwell’s New York Office. Nydia has a Master in the Science of Law (JSM) from Stanford University and has graduate studies in Economics, Finance and Computer Science from the International University of Andalusia.