Taming The Titans

In our first episode, we ask how digital power became so concentrated in the hands of the (extremely) few, who let it happen, and what’s being done about it.

Emily Hart speaks to investigative journalist Nick Shaxson and ARTICLE 19's Martha Tudón, who leads work on digital rights in Mexico and Central America, about how a handful of companies, like Meta, Alphabet and Twitter, now hold the keys to the Internet - how do we get them back?

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This week, we talk about a crucial third force in this discussion - beyond state and business: civil society - groups of citizens advocating for human and democratic rights and for the good of societies.

But, it's not easy for civil society's voice to be heard in the face of extremely powerful and notoriously secretive companies with huge budgets for lobbying and influence in very high places. Emily Hart is joined by experts from two top consumer rights organisations - one from each side of the Atlantic: Vanessa Turner of BEUC and Camila Leite Contri of the Brazilian Institute of Consumers Protection.

A global debate is coming: legislators and regulators in different parts of the world will need to adapt emerging regulatory tools and concepts to their own context and markets. What can we learn from the process of negotiations around the Digital Markets Act in Europe and how can it be replicated in other contexts? Is it even the right template? How can we weave together a global civil society to make sure that people's voices are really heard in this growing conversation?

To learn more about ARTICLE 19 and the work we do, head to https://www.article19.org

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The 20th century birthed ‘Big Brother’ - an omnipresent surveillance state - but the 21st century's digital surveillance capacities have created a ‘Big Other’ - online corporations watching us more closely than any state apparatus ever has - the difference is, we’ve put Big Other in our own pockets and homes.

Emily Hart is joined by Luis Fernando García, Executive Director and co-founder of Mexican digital rights organisation R3D, and Tomaso Falchetta, who leads Privacy International's global policy engagement.

They'll be digging into issues of online privacy and surveillance - how much do we even know about the data being collected on us? Why does it matter to our human rights and democracies? What can we do?

How do the titans of tech limit and manipulate our freedom of expression online?

Today we're talking about bringing Big Tech down to size - and using regulation to do it. Emily Hart is joined by Argentinian free speech expert Agustina del Campo and ARTICLE 19's Maria Luisa Stasi, who leads the organisation's work on law and policy for digital markets - they'll be digging into Europe's Digital Markets Act - the most ambitious legislation so far to tackle the issues of power concentration and anti-competitive behaviours in digital markets.

To learn more about ARTICLE 19 and the work we do, head to https://www.article19.org/

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This week, we are looking a little deeper into the murky world of social media companies and search engines - and the gargantuan power they exercise over our online lives as well as our human rights.

Emily Hart is joined by Carolina Botero of Colombian digital rights campaign Karisma and regulation expert Dr Liza Luffdal Gormsen - they'll be looking at regulation, and talking about whether the models currently emerging in Europe can work in other contexts, given the radically different factors at play.

To learn more about ARTICLE 19 and the work we do, head to https://www.article19.org/

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