As I mentioned in my first post, conflict is all around us. When I started this blog, the Western media was talking exclusively about the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine and their ongoing fight on the ground and in the online world (Bond, 2023). However, things have changed.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched their surprise attack on Israel (Al Lawati et al., 2023; Nakhoul & Saul, 2023). A day later, Israel declared official “war on Hamas”, which allowed them to use “significant military steps” against the Gaza Strip (Bellamy, 2023; Gold et al., 2023). However, this conflict is significantly being fought not only on the ground but also online – with propaganda and disinformation guiding information streams that form opinions for social media consumers (Sadek & Mashkoor, 2023). However, who is governing the information that we receive?
Title photo credit: Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash
Data – power and knowledge
Ruppert et al. (2017) argue that “data enacts that which it represents” (Ruppert et al., 2017, p.1). In other words, the data serves as a power tool for the actors it is working for. In the article, Ruppert and colleagues theorize the notion of “’data politics’ as a field of power and knowledge” (Ruppert et al., 2017, p.2). Firstly, to highlight the data’s interconnected nature to perform as “generative of new forms of power relations and politics” (Ruppert et al., 2017, p.2), the authors draw on the example of the Cambridge Analytica case which helped “to swing both the US election and the UK referendum by mining data from Facebook”(Ruppert et al., 2017, p.2). This showcases, that using social media data can enact behavioural change that constitutes the offline world action. Data can shape “our social relations, preferences, and life chances” and can change political regimes like “our very democracies” (Ruppert et al., 2017, p.2).
Secondly, the knowledge is generated systematically. Ruppert et al (2017) draw on Foucault’s (2007) work and elaborate that “data does not happen through unstructured social practices but through structured and structuring fields in and through which various agents and their interests generate forms of expertise, interpretation, concepts, and methods that collectively function as fields of power and knowledge” (Ruppert et al., 2017, p.3., italic in original). In other words, data is formed through a systematic collection of previously agreed-upon notions to keep, control and guide the power.
Who has the power and knowledge is an ever-present question in the ComDev world. On the one hand, ITC4D and “social media may contribute to poverty alleviation, opportunities for capacity building, and a role in reducing corruption” (Walsham, 2017, p.29). On the other hand, we must stress the “dark side of social media such as cyber-bullying, organizing riots, and spreading hatred” (Walsham, 2017, p.29). Therefore, the combination of access to data, masterful usage of it and pre-claimed expertise can give specific actors the ability to gain and keep power in the world of data and guide the discourse in the ComDev field.
Photo credit: Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash
Digital – new territory, new rules
The digital world is a new territory – we call it cyberspace (Ruppert et al., 2017, p.5). “Next to land, water, air and space, cyberspace is the complex socio-technical setting often called the ‘fifth domain’ “(Koulos, 2022, p.1). The development of technologies and the Internet has supported the borderless development of this new “type of ‘space’” (Koulos, 2022, p.3). Koulos (2022) explains that cyberspace has become “a territory to-be-conquered” (Koulos, 2022, p.3). In the nation-state manner, this space is bound to be governed as a part of their national interest. Moreover, Koulos (2022) notes that current discourse on governing cyberspace points to nationalism tendencies: “cyber-attacks, cyber-wars, cyber-defence, etc. – corresponds to the one used for real space national practices and seems to indicate the fact that cyberspace has embraced nationalism” (Koulos, 2022, p.14).
Although we have heard the notion that the Internet does not have borders(Satariano, 2018), “cyberspace is indeed a field of confrontation for states that wish to extend their legal borders or their spheres of influence”(Desforges & Gery, 2022). The authors also note that internet borders are a complex system, that contrary to physical borders, changes more dynamically. Moreover, geopolitical conflicts “shape the boundaries of cyberspace by modifying existing borders and creating new ones” (Desforges & Gery, 2022). In other words, nation-states are claiming the digital world and setting their borders online.
We can see countries working towards implementing borders for their “security”. For example, China’s “Great Firewall” which started in 2000 as an initiative to “monitor and censor what can and cannot be seen through an online network in China” (Standford, 2010), has now grown into “a giant mechanism of censorship and surveillance aimed at restricting content, identifying and locating individuals, and providing immediate access to personal records”(Wang, 2020). Recently Russia’s wish to build a ‘sovereign Internet’ has resurfaced the conversation, so that the Kremlin could gain control over the narrative about the ongoing war in Ukraine (Bateman, 2022). However, it is very unlikely that Russia will follow through with this plan as they are much more “integrated into the global internet” than China was when they started to build their “Great Firewall” (Bateman, 2022).
Although nation-states want to have control over their digital territory, it is not that easy as globalization has opened the accessibility and information flow. While China and Russia are setting their local rules on their citizens’ access to the internet and setting their rules on digital products, there is a player who governs the internet borders more globally. In 2018, the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into the workings setting the administration rules on the “processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data” (European Parliament, 2016). Moreover, GDPR was accepted as a more global standard, as countries like “Brazil, Japan and South Korea” were looking to “follow Europe’s lead “ (Satariano, 2018) and businesses like Meta (previously, Facebook) and Microsoft decided to roll out the GDPR to their global markets not just to their customers in the EU (Brill, 2018; Facebook Business, 2018). Satariano (2018) notes, that Europe has become the world’s leading “tech watchdog”(Satariano, 2018). Moreover, he also notes that “with the internet’s borderless nature, the regulations are set to have an outsize impact far beyond Europe” (Satariano, 2018).
Interestingly, the “borderless Internet” is being constrained by heavy digital fencing under national and international cyber regulations.
Photo credit: François Genon (@genon2) on Unsplash
The Brussels Effect
“The EU’s unilateral power to regulate global markets” is called the “Brussels effect” (Bradford, 2020, p.xv). EU is in no need to look for other nations’ collaboration as “market forces alone are often sufficient to convert the EU standard into the global standard as companies voluntarily extend the EU rule to govern their worldwide operations”(Bradford, 2020, p.xv). Moreover, although it is often claimed that the EU is losing its superpower in governing the world, Bradford (2020) notes that “the Brussels Effect leads to “unilateral regulatory globalization,” and “Europeanization”, as “regulations originating from a single jurisdiction penetrate many aspects of economic life across the global marketplace”(Bradford, 2020, p.xiv – xv). In other words, EU is setting the rules and global market does not have a lot of space to oppose. Moreover, by doing this, the EU “wields significant, unique, and highly penetrating power to unilaterally transform global markets, be it through its ability to set the standards in competition policy, environmental protection, food safety, the protection of privacy, or the regulation of hate speech in social media” (Bradford, 2020, p.xiv).
DSA and disinformation
And yet another EU legislation is here to dictate the tone. Digital Service Act (DSA) was launched by the European Union and took effect on August 25, 2023, (Shankar, 2023). The new digital legislation targets “very large” digital platforms and aims to “put in force measures to moderate illegal content and prevent, for example, the promotion of hate speech on their online platforms” (Shankar, 2023). In other words, DSA is the new EU attempt to regulate information circulation in their territory.
Andrea Renda, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based think tank Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in an interview with the DW elaborated on the EU’s role in setting the example globally: “In the US, they look at the DSA as a shining example of how the EU sometimes can regulate much better than the US” (Shankar, 2023). She also notes that countries like Brazil and Japan are interested in the implementation process of DSA. Moreover,” Japan might even repurpose it just like they did with another piece of EU regulation called platform-to-business”(Shankar, 2023). In other words, similarly to GDPR, the DSA is on the way to setting the “Brussels effect” on global internet platform usage.
Can DSA shape the disinformation about the war in Gaza globally?
In the recent events of the Hamas and Israel war, the latest legislation by the EU could become the blueprint for how to work with global platforms when it comes to spreading disinformation.
On October 10,11 and 12, 2023, Thierry Breton, European Commissioner, sent open letters to the owners of social media platforms X and Meta, and the CEO of TikTok, respectively (Goujard, 2023b). In the letters, Breton urged platforms to keep up with the DSA rules that all platforms have agreed to follow (Breton, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c; Clegg, 2023; O’Carroll, 2023).
In the letters, Breton demands that all three platform leaders monitor the content that is being published on their platforms so that it comply with DSA. Moreover, when the platform has received a notification about “illegal content in the EU”, they “must be timely, diligent, and objective in taking action and removing the relevant content when warranted”(Breton, 2023a, 2023c). EU Commissioner stresses that misinformation can impose “risks to public safety and civic discourse”(Breton, 2023a, 2023c) and that the platforms “need to put in the place appropriate and proportionate measures to guarantee a high level of privacy, safety and security”, especially when the violent content targets children and youth (Breton, 2023c).
The X CEO Linda Yaccarino has been the only representative from companies that have replied to the letter publicly (Jackson & Malaret, 2023). In the reply, Yaccarino stressed X’s commitment to transparency, safety, and implementing DSA (Yaccarino, 2023). However, the European Commission has already started investigations on X, Meta and TikTok over the Hamas content (Goujard, 2023c, 2023d). Non-compliance with these and other claims from the European Commission could lead to imposing DSA rules. For example, if Meta fails to reply regarding their crisis response and protection of the integrity of elections by October 25th and November 8th respectively, the Commission could impose “periodic penalty payments”(European Commission, 2023). Furthermore, generally, platforms could face “fines of up to 6 percent of the global turnover”(Jackson & Malaret, 2023) and “a temporary suspension of the services” for breaches of the DSA (Milmo, 2023).
At this point, the EU has the power to set content moderation standards and online borders more widely. Possibly, the changes in content moderation that the EU’s DSA is requesting, and this Hamas-Israel conflict is enlightening could shape the global content moderation policy on these global platforms.
Important to note is the actual global scale of these platforms. While Meta (owns Facebook) and X (previously Twitter) are based in Silicon Valley, US (Clayton & Hoskins, 2022; Meta, n.d.), according to Statista, five out of six top user countries worldwide are from the Global Majority – India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines, respectively, representing more than 707 million active users (Statista, 2023b). TikTok is a Chinese-governed app (Goujard, 2023a). Furthermore, TikTok is the most popular in the US, and the app has a big following in the Global Majority as well (Statista, 2023a). However, TikTok is banned from use on many European government-owned devices, as it is seen with scepticism about data privacy (Goujard, 2023a).
Therefore, if these platforms comply with the DSA and other countries across the world adopt the DSA model to monitor cyberspace and social media platforms (Statista, 2023c), the EU “Brussels effect” would once again show its power to control the data and govern the knowledge worldwide.
Is there a possibility to question the EU’s role as a superpower towards generating knowledge? Is there an actual possibility to contest the “existing power relations and narratives” through “the multiplicity of bottom-up, transformative initiatives interfering with and/or hijacking dominant, top-down processes of datafication” – a concept that Beraldo & Milan(2019) define as “contentious politics of data” (Beraldo & Milan, 2019, p.2)? Can nations that want to have their own governed “cyberspace” or countries in Global Majority, that use the big tech platforms contest the EU’s set rules? And if, yes, how could that look like? That’s a question for another time.
Conclusion
As seen beforehand with GDPR, DSA could potentially become a united framework for cyberspace in how to fight disinformation globally through enforcement of the big tech and through adopting the same legislation in different countries. Combating disinformation is important, especially in times of war and conflict. However, this blog post highlights that once again the EU is empowering itself to become a guardian and rule-setter of the world – this time in cyberspace.
Throughout my blog posts, I wanted to take a journey to understand how data and social media is being used as a tool to govern people in the offline world, especially in times of conflict and war. In my first blog, I presented that crisis and conflict are all around us. In my second blog post, I explored how one “like” on social media can lead to jail and how data regarding an expiring passport can be used as a tool to target political opposition in Belarus. Finally, I explored the “Brussels effect” and how the EU (again) is creating a data-related blueprint for countries and big tech worldwide and guiding knowledge creation not only in the EU but more so in the Global Majority. I find the topic of data, social media and conflict extremely important, as with borders or not, the Internet and online speech can spill over into the offline world. I hope you found my blog posts interesting and leave a comment below with your thoughts!
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