For this week’s episode, Alina Utrata talked to Julia Rone, a post-doc at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at Cambridge University. They discussed the rise of the European far-right online—what's the relationship between online disinformation and political mobilization? Why is the far-right so much better at mobilizing online than the far-left? Can platforms or content moderation policies really stop them? And is any of this about “social media” or is it just about social movements? 

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Articles mentioned in this podcast

Julia Rone’s publications:

On the Minderoo Centre’s blog Power-Switch:

Democratizing digital sovereignty: an impossible task?

Public networks instead of social networks?

On the London School of Economics blog:

Collateral Damage: How algorithms to counter “fake news” threaten citizen media in Bulgaria

Why talking about ‘disinformation’ misses the point when considering radical right ‘alternative’ media

Academic Articles:

Far right alternative news media as ‘indignation mobilization mechanisms’: how the far right opposed the Global Compact for Migration

The people formerly known as the oligarchy: the cooptation of citizen journalism

More from our colleagues at the Minderoo Centre:

Josh Simons on why Google and Facebook algorithms are political (and should be regulated as public utilities): Utilities for Democracy: Why the Algorithmic Infrastructure of Facebook and Google must be Regulated

Jennifer Cobbe on the issues surrounding algorithmic reach and recommendations: Regulating Recommending: Motivations, Considerations, and Principles

John Naughton’s excellent Observer column on why the Facebook Oversight Board is just some corporate theatre masquerading as political theatre 

Alina Utrata (me!) on Should you have a right to a Facebook account?

Other articles:

Rene DiRiesta’s famous phrase “free speech is not the same as free reach”

Kristoffer Holt on the definition of alternative news media

Leonie De Jonge on different media models and their affect on the radical right in Europe 

Google threatening to leave Australia altogether over proposed legal changes—would they become a “Bing” country?

French President Sarkozy on “civilizing” the internet and Macron’s IGF speech on the need for more state involvement in Internet governance and regulation

Books:

Michael Sandel’s excellent book the Tyranny of Meritocracy, and a wonderful Talking Politics episode with him (in case you don’t have time to read the full thing!)

The Real Cyber War: The Political Economy of Internet Freedom by Shawn M. Powers and Michael Jablonski

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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