The Internet, which has become an inseparable part of our daily life, is constantly changing. In recent years, following the global pandemic experience in particular, the hybridization of life is an everyday occurrence. Observing numerous discussions on AI, we bring up an equally important topic from the Civil Society Organizations’ (CSOs) perspective: the social media platforms. Web 2.0, or the social media internet, has been with us in full stride for more than a dozen years; the question is: how do the platforms affect the everyday functioning of citizens and human rights today?

During the talk with Katarzyna Szymielewicz, we dive into changes observed in the online sphere, explaining the workings of profiling, microtargeting, borderline content. We also discuss legal issues governing social media, sharing good practices observed in the EU.

✅ In the second episode of our podcast interview series for NGOs and CSOs, you can deep dive into the following dilemmas and get your questions answered:

  • How do social media platforms work?

  • What are: “profiling”, “micro-targeting”, and “recommender systems” in social media?

  • What is wrong with social media regarding human rights and democracy?

  • Can we observe any good practices and trends in regulating digital services?

  • What is “The Digital Services Act” about? What are “VLOPs” and “VLOSEs”?

  • Is a democratic digital world even possible?

🎧🔗 Listen to our podcast on the Hive Mind Community channel on Spotify to find out more:

Katarzyna Szymielewicz is a lawyer specializing in human rights and technology. She’s the co-founder and lead of the Panoptykon Foundation – a Polish NGO defending human rights in the context of contemporary forms of surveillance. Katarzyna is vice-president of European Digital Rights, a coalition of 33 privacy and civil rights organizations. She is a board member of the Tactical Technology Collective and Amnesty International (Poland). A graduate of the University of Warsaw (Law) and the School of Oriental and African Studies (Development Studies), she is now a member of the Council for Digitization in Poland.

🎙️🎚️ The podcast was recorded and mixed at "Podcastownia Ciekawość" (Warsaw, Poland)

🎵 Music by Zykovich Yauheni aka JJ

📆 Podcast recorded on October 27, 2023

💡 Read more on recommender systems in the Briefing Note "Fixing Recommender Systems.From identification of risk factors to meaningful transparency and mitigation" by Panoptykon Foundation, Irish Council for Civil Liberties, and People vs BIGTTECH