This study provides a comparative survey of policy-making discourse in the United Kingdom and the United States from 2016 to 2020 around digital threats to democracy. Through an inductive coding process, it identifies six core ideals common in these two countries: transparency, accountability, engagement, informed public, social solidarity, and freedom of expression. Reviewing how these ideals are constructed in policy-making documents, we find differences in each country's emphasis, inconsistencies in how some democratic ideals are evoked and promoted, conflicts between different democratic ideals, and disconnects between empirical realities of democracy and policy-making discourse. There is a lack of clarity in what social solidarity, engagement, and freedom of expression mean and how they should be balanced; conceptions of an informed public are deeply fraught, and in tension with other ideals. We argue that policy-making discourse is often out of step with the growing literature which suggests that political conflicts between social groups, right-wing extremism, and antidemocratic actions increasingly taken by elites and parties are at the root of growing democratic crises. This state of policy-making discourse has important implications for attempts to pursue regulation and suggests the need for further reflection by policymakers on the democratic ideals they are solving for.
{"title":"The capricious relationship between technology and democracy: Analyzing public policy discussions in the UK and US","authors":"Bridget Barrett, K. Dommett, Daniel Kreiss","doi":"10.1002/poi3.266","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.266","url":null,"abstract":"This study provides a comparative survey of policy-making discourse in the United Kingdom and the United States from 2016 to 2020 around digital threats to democracy. Through an inductive coding process, it identifies six core ideals common in these two countries: transparency, accountability, engagement, informed public, social solidarity, and freedom of expression. Reviewing how these ideals are constructed in policy-making documents, we find differences in each country's emphasis, inconsistencies in how some democratic ideals are evoked and promoted, conflicts between different democratic ideals, and disconnects between empirical realities of democracy and policy-making discourse. There is a lack of clarity in what social solidarity, engagement, and freedom of expression mean and how they should be balanced; conceptions of an informed public are deeply fraught, and in tension with other ideals. We argue that policy-making discourse is often out of step with the growing literature which suggests that political conflicts between social groups, right-wing extremism, and antidemocratic actions increasingly taken by elites and parties are at the root of growing democratic crises. This state of policy-making discourse has important implications for attempts to pursue regulation and suggests the need for further reflection by policymakers on the democratic ideals they are solving for.","PeriodicalId":46894,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Internet","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1002/poi3.266","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49401538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gatekeepers of toxicity: Reconceptualizing Twitter's abuse and hate speech policies","authors":"Daniel Konikoff","doi":"10.1002/poi3.265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.265","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46894,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Internet","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1002/poi3.265","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"51867741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Who is leading China's family planning policy discourse in Weibo? A social media text mining analysis","authors":"W. Deng, Jia-Huey Hsu, K. Löfgren, Wonhyuk Cho","doi":"10.1002/POI3.264","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/POI3.264","url":null,"abstract":"No description supplied","PeriodicalId":46894,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Internet","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1002/POI3.264","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44509389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Research themes in big data analytics for policymaking: Insights from a mixed‐methods systematic literature review","authors":"A. Suominen, Arash Hajikhani","doi":"10.1002/POI3.258","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/POI3.258","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46894,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Internet","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1002/POI3.258","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41397735","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Issue Information","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/poi3.242","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.242","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46894,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Internet","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1002/poi3.242","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44717583","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
H. Margetts, V. Lehdonvirta, Sandra González-Bailón, J. Hutchinson, Jonathan Bright, Vicki Nash, David Sutcliffe
In January 2021, the editorial team of Policy & Internet changed from the Oxford Internet Institute to the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. This article invites all the past and current editors to contribute to the future directions and discussion of internet and public policy. It is collection of six contributions covering the trajectory of the internet policy research agenda, platform power in the digital economy, algorithms and the need for transparency, media diversity and platform regulation, speech in the age of content moderation and age-gating the internet. The collection of essays highlights the past 10 years of the journal and paints a clear trajectory for the next era of Policy & Internet.
{"title":"The Internet and public policy: Future directions","authors":"H. Margetts, V. Lehdonvirta, Sandra González-Bailón, J. Hutchinson, Jonathan Bright, Vicki Nash, David Sutcliffe","doi":"10.1002/poi3.263","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.263","url":null,"abstract":"In January 2021, the editorial team of Policy & Internet changed from the Oxford Internet Institute to the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. This article invites all the past and current editors to contribute to the future directions and discussion of internet and public policy. It is collection of six contributions covering the trajectory of the internet policy research agenda, platform power in the digital economy, algorithms and the need for transparency, media diversity and platform regulation, speech in the age of content moderation and age-gating the internet. The collection of essays highlights the past 10 years of the journal and paints a clear trajectory for the next era of Policy & Internet.","PeriodicalId":46894,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Internet","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1002/poi3.263","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44272691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Martin J. Riedl, Teresa K. Naab, Gina M. Masullo, Pablo Jost, Marc Ziegele
Online comment sections on news organizations' social media pages provide a unique forum for exploring attitudes toward platform governance and freedom of expression at the crossroads between people, platforms, and news providers. Amid ample political and policy interest, little empirical evidence exists on user perceptions of platform governance. Through survey studies in Germany ( n = 1155) and the United States ( n = 1164), we provide a comparative perspective on responsibility attributions toward different regulatory actors who may intervene against problematic user comments: the state (law enforcement), platform operators (Facebook), news organizations, and users themselves. We explore this against the backdrop of different notions of free speech and cultural differences in the two countries. We fi nd that Germans attribute greater responsibility for intervention to the state, Facebook, and news organizations than Americans. They also assume greater self ‐ responsibility. While support for free speech did not impact responsibility attribution to Facebook, news organizations, or the users themselves, people with
{"title":"Who is responsible for interventions against problematic comments? Comparing user attitudes in Germany and the United States","authors":"Martin J. Riedl, Teresa K. Naab, Gina M. Masullo, Pablo Jost, Marc Ziegele","doi":"10.1002/POI3.257","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/POI3.257","url":null,"abstract":"Online comment sections on news organizations' social media pages provide a unique forum for exploring attitudes toward platform governance and freedom of expression at the crossroads between people, platforms, and news providers. Amid ample political and policy interest, little empirical evidence exists on user perceptions of platform governance. Through survey studies in Germany ( n = 1155) and the United States ( n = 1164), we provide a comparative perspective on responsibility attributions toward different regulatory actors who may intervene against problematic user comments: the state (law enforcement), platform operators (Facebook), news organizations, and users themselves. We explore this against the backdrop of different notions of free speech and cultural differences in the two countries. We fi nd that Germans attribute greater responsibility for intervention to the state, Facebook, and news organizations than Americans. They also assume greater self ‐ responsibility. While support for free speech did not impact responsibility attribution to Facebook, news organizations, or the users themselves, people with","PeriodicalId":46894,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Internet","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1002/POI3.257","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47806830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 2017, the UK Parliament passed an Act requiring legal pornographic websites to implement ‘robust’ age verification checks. Although the Act inspired lawmakers elsewhere to propose similar legislation, it was never enacted, in part because it did not cover social media platforms. Instead, the UK government has turned to its Online Harms White Paper—which does target social media platforms—to protect children from online pornography. There is, however, scant evidence on the media platforms and technologies children use to access pornography. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a survey of 16‐ and 17‐year‐olds in the United Kingdom. The results show that more (63%) had seen pornography on social media platforms than on pornographic websites (47%), suggesting the UK government was right to target such platforms in its latest proposals. However, pornography was much more frequently viewed on pornographic websites than on social media, showing how important the regulation of such sites remains. Furthermore, our finding that 46% of 16‐ and 17‐year‐olds had used a virtual private network or Tor browser adds weight to concerns that restrictions on legal internet pornography—such as age verification checks—imposed by a single country may be circumvented by those the restrictions are designed to protect.
{"title":"The regulation of internet pornography: What a survey of under‐18s tells us about the necessity for and potential efficacy of emerging legislative approaches","authors":"Neil J. Thurman, Fabian Obster","doi":"10.1002/POI3.250","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/POI3.250","url":null,"abstract":"In 2017, the UK Parliament passed an Act requiring legal pornographic websites to implement ‘robust’ age verification checks. Although the Act inspired lawmakers elsewhere to propose similar legislation, it was never enacted, in part because it did not cover social media platforms. Instead, the UK government has turned to its Online Harms White Paper—which does target social media platforms—to protect children from online pornography. There is, however, scant evidence on the media platforms and technologies children use to access pornography. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a survey of 16‐ and 17‐year‐olds in the United Kingdom. The results show that more (63%) had seen pornography on social media platforms than on pornographic websites (47%), suggesting the UK government was right to target such platforms in its latest proposals. However, pornography was much more frequently viewed on pornographic websites than on social media, showing how important the regulation of such sites remains. Furthermore, our finding that 46% of 16‐ and 17‐year‐olds had used a virtual private network or Tor browser adds weight to concerns that restrictions on legal internet pornography—such as age verification checks—imposed by a single country may be circumvented by those the restrictions are designed to protect.","PeriodicalId":46894,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Internet","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1002/POI3.250","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45187283","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A policy impact tool: Measuring the policy impact of public participation in deliberative e‐rulemaking","authors":"A. Deligiaouri, Jane Suiter","doi":"10.1002/POI3.254","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/POI3.254","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46894,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Internet","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1002/POI3.254","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48197747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Back from the dead (again): The specter of the Fairness Doctrine and its lesson for social media regulation","authors":"Philip M. Napoli","doi":"10.1002/POI3.253","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/POI3.253","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46894,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Internet","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1002/POI3.253","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45640406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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