At this year’s edition of the Computers, Privacy and Data Protection conference in Brussels, our co-director Natali Helberger and PhD candidate Agustin Ferrari Braun were each part of a panel closely related to the lab’s research agenda:
Clouded and concentrated: Examining the digital foundations of Freedom of Expression — Agustin, whose PhD research centers around the politics and dynamics of digital infrastructures in European news media, contributed to the discussion with his knowledge about the implications of infrastructural dependencies of media companies on American “hyperscalers” (companies like Microsoft or Amazon).
When Big Tech rules universities: reclaiming academic freedom through digital sovereignty — Natali’s contribution to this panel was in terms of explaining concrete observations regarding how the digital services that educational institutions rely on have inherent values that are not necessarily aligned with academic principles. She expressed how being conscious of dependencies is only the first half of the problem, and that the search for infrastructural alternatives beyond American Big Tech needs to continue and even speed up.
