On Monday 9 October 2023 from 12:00-13:00 in room 4.78, Jelena Belic, Matthew Canfield, Rachel Griffin, Henning Lahmann, and Barrie Sander will present their research on 'The Promise and Perils of Human Rights for Governing Digital Platforms'. 

Recent decades have witnessed the emergence of digital platforms as the “core organisational form” of informational capitalism. Platforms constitute important sites of political, social, economic, and cultural exchange, typically underpinned by extractivist business models based on the collection, aggregation, analysis, and exchange of data. While platformisation is facilitating greater interconnection between actors around the world, many perceive it as threatening core social and democratic values – whether in terms of the expansion of corporate power under informational capitalism, the reproduction of colonial power asymmetries, the “gigification” and precarisation of labour, or the reification of racial inequalities. In response, policymakers, civil society organisations, and academics have begun to frame platform governance through the framework of human rights. Yet while it offers a salient language of social justice, it is unclear whether it is legally and conceptually adequate to address the issue.

Please email us at gtgc@leidenuniv.nl if you wish to have lunch provided.

Zoom connection

https://universiteitleiden.zoom.us/j/68213659365?pwd=Qm1tZFRTNVBrWUVrMUtBRjRGdTdDQT09

Meeting ID: 682 1365 9365 / Passcode: QJF*y4ym