In this month’s episode, we sat down with an investigative reporter Michael Colborne at Bellingcat that is focusing on the issues related to the far right movements in the Central and Eastern Europe.

We start by talking about his work and the issues he’s covering in the field and then move to the issue of the popularization of far right movements in general european societies, the political narratives and media discourses.

What are some of the key factors that play a role in the process, how can we counter the rise as citizens and as consumers and who else is involved? What are some of the main differences between the far right movements in the Western and Eastern Europe, how do these influences play a role in the uptick of far right movements and how do we oppose them on a local, regional and state level?

Podcast Citizen D gives you a reason for being a productive citizen. Citizen D features talks by experts in different fields focusing on the pressing topics in the field of information society and media. We can do it. Full steam ahead!

Julia Rodina is the founder of NPO Tuleviku Meedia, media consultant, and media literacy trainer.

We sat down with her to talk about the estonian media aspect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the role of the media literacy in the aspect of active citizenship and the role of digital intermediaries in that regard.

We also touch upon the particulars of media literacy trainings, the role of digital natives and the way ahead.

Podcast Citizen D gives you a reason for being a productive citizen. Citizen D features talks by experts in different fields focusing on the pressing topics in the field of information society and media. We can do it. Full steam ahead!

Karen Hao is a former senior AI editor at MIT Technology Review, covering the field’s cutting-edge research and its impacts on society, who is now working for the Wall Street Journal. Prior to joining the publication, she was a tech reporter and data scientist at Quartz and an application engineer at the first startup to spin out of Google X.

We sat down with her to discuss her investigative series on AI decolonization, the media framing of the tech and AI industry and the differences between the USA, EU and China approach to AI implementations.

Podcast Citizen D gives you a reason for being a productive citizen. Citizen D features talks by experts in different fields focusing on the pressing topics in the field of information society and media. We can do it. Full steam ahead!

Francesca Musiani (PhD, socio-economics of innovation, MINES ParisTech, 2012), is Associate Research Professor at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) since 2014. She is Deputy Director of the Center for Internet and Society of CNRS, which she co-founded with Mélanie Dulong de Rosnay in 2019. She is also an associate researcher at the Center for the sociology of innovation (i3/MINES ParisTech) and a Global Fellow at the Internet Governance Lab, American University in Washington, DC.

Since 2006, Francesca’s research work focuses on Internet governance, in an interdisciplinary perspective merging information and communication sciences, science and technology studies (STS) and international law. Her most recent research explores, or has explored, the development and use of encryption technologies in secure messaging, “digital resistances” to censorship and surveillance in the Russian Internet and the governance of Web archives.

Podcast Citizen D gives you a reason for being a productive citizen. Citizen D features talks by experts in different fields focusing on the pressing topics in the field of information society and media. We can do it. Full steam ahead!

Per Axbom is a designer, coach and visual explainer working out of Stockholm, Sweden. He has dabbled in usability, accessibility and UX since the mid-nineties. His passion for interviews, sketches and prototypes allow him to understand vividly and explain comprehensibly.

His passion for listening helps people get unstuck and move forward in work and life. Regularly contributing to the UX community through blog posts and podcasts, Per is very keen on promoting the concept of design ethics and is working on a book to help designers embrace ethics thinking.

Podcast Citizen D gives you a reason for being a productive citizen. Citizen D features talks by experts in different fields focusing on the pressing topics in the field of information society and media. We can do it. Full steam ahead!

Sophia Goodfriend is a PhD candidate at Duke University’s Department of Cultural Anthropology and Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Fellow. Currently based in Jerusalem, her academic work examines the ethics and impact of new surveillance technologies.

She is focusing on the use and contestation of digital and biometric monitoring in particular. Alongside her academic work, she work as an independent researcher with civil society organizations in the region and as a freelance journalist.

We sat down with her to talk about the paradigm shift of surveillance from state to market, about the ever-changing face of surveillance machinery and the ways to counter it as a citizen and as a consumer.

Podcast Citizen D gives you a reason for being a productive citizen. Citizen D features talks by experts in different fields focusing on the pressing topics in the field of information society and media. We can do it. Full steam ahead!

Are smart cities just another word for surveillance society or can we truly benefit from multiple sensors in public places? We sat down with members of the Technopolice initivative in Brussels that tracks, analyses and campaigns against smart city and surveillance capitalism solutions.

Can smart city solutions protect our privacy, does surveillance work and what is the political reasoning for implementation of such solutions?

Podcast Citizen D gives you a reason for being a productive citizen. Citizen D features talks by experts in different fields focusing on the pressing topics in the field of information society and media. We can do it. Full steam ahead!

Elena Maris is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Maris’s research is concerned with the interactions and tensions between media/tech industries and their users or audiences.

She is particularly interested in the ways they use technology to understand and influence one another. She also studies how people experience and leverage their identities through their experiences with popular culture, technology and the internet.

Podcast Citizen D gives you a reason for being a productive citizen. Citizen D features talks by experts in different fields focusing on the pressing topics in the field of information society and media. We can do it. Full steam ahead!

Claudia Prettner is a legal/policy adviser on technology, data protection and human rights at Amnesty Tech, a part of Amnesty International. The topic of our discussion is surveillance advertising and the current regulatory attempts to solve this problem.

With the current Digital Services Act heading for the trialogue and civil society highlighting the issue of surveillance society that still remains unchecked, Amnesty Tech warns against several issues related to the model of surveillance advertising that relies heavily on the user’s personal data and uses our digital activities against us.

What can we do as citizens, what can we do as consumer and why the current Digital Services Act represents one of the best chances to get this right?

Podcast Citizen D gives you a reason for being a productive citizen. Citizen D features talks by experts in different fields focusing on the pressing topics in the field of information society and media. We can do it. Full steam ahead!

Dr. Daniel Rogers is a physicist, an author, and an expert in cryptography, cybercrime, disinformation, and security. He’s currently working as a CTO at the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) where they aim to disrupt, defund and down-rank disinformation sites.

He is a co-founder of Terbium Labs. Previously, Danny managed a portfolio of physics and sensor research projects at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He currently teaches in the Cybercrime and Global Security Masters Program at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs and is a Security Fellow at the Truman Project on National Security.

Digital advertising is one of the key funders of propaganda and hate speech media outlets that distort and manipulate public opinion. Be it because of algorithmic mismanagement or targeted financing through advertising contracts, these digital financial mechanism are rarely discussed or addressed which enables the hate peddlers to thrive on.

The solutions of disinformation combating usually rely on fact-checking endeavours which emphasise the role of a responsible and critical media consumer, always on the look-out for a hoax or a disinformation campaign. In reality, digital users are guided by emotions, media outlets are targeting them with disinformation in order to achieve a political, not just monetary goal and reported cases higlight the involvement of public funds (Greece, Slovenia, other EU members).

What’s the economy of digital hate, what role does the user play and where does the advertising industry come in?

• Rethink economical and political aspects of disinformation countering
• Request political responsibility
• Regulatory models should address these issues

• How Ad Tech Wound Up Monetizing Sanctioned Russian Websites – article
• Pandemic relief aid went to media that promoted COVID misinformation – article
• Disinformation Is Among the Greatest Threats to Our Democracy. Here Are Three Key Ways to Fight It – article
• Misinformation During a Pandemic – research paper
• Disrupting Disinformation: A Global Snapshot of Government Initiatives – report
• Bankrolling Bigotry: An Overview of the Online Funding Strategies of American Hate Groups – report

Podcast Citizen D gives you a reason for being a productive citizen. Citizen D features talks by experts in different fields focusing on the pressing topics in the field of information society and media. We can do it. Full steam ahead!