The commercialized public sphere

Purpose

Empirically, the project investigates how staff within Google and Facebook make sense of human rights such as freedom of expression and privacy, and how this translates into user policy, design features, and platform governance.

Theoretically, it examines the commodified public sphere, the personal information economy, contemporary forms of speech / content control, and, more broadly, the protection of human rights in a domain largely controlled by private actors.

One major challenge relates to the fact that public and private life on the internet depends on infrastructure and platforms provided for by companies. While the internet as a public sphere is widely studied, not much of this research focuses on the nature of the companies that set the conditions for public and private life in the online realm. Moreover, little research demonstrates and relates company perceptions and practices to the broader human rights implications of these. Presuming that internet companies play a key role for human right protection on the internet, it becomes paramount to understand these actors in more detail. Responding to this need, the present research project asks: How do these actors influence the conditions for public and private life and what are the human rights implications of this?

Research funding

The Danish Council for Independent Research: Sapere Aude-program