 Thanks so much That's the spirit. I've done nothing and applause. Hello, everybody. I'm Wolfgang Schultz Thanks very much for coming I would like to give you a warm welcome on behalf of the hence Prado Institute in Hamburg and the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society in Burling the local host of this year's conference of the Association of Internet researchers Does someone of you still read newspapers? Oh? You do perfect if you read newspapers and understand German you might have seen we are today on the front page of the Berliner Zeitung one of the most important Berlin newspapers and Yes, you can applaud yourself and the I Know for our community the rank at Twitter's trending topics is more important, but nevertheless I think it shows the relevance of the topics we are discussing for the general public and in the lead story in the Berliner Zeitung the former president of the Humboldt University Professor Olberts talks about digital transformation But he also states that discussing arguing and questioning traditional stocks of knowledge is still best done in an analog Way and that's why it makes a lot of sense to travel around the world like many of you have done to meet here in person From time to time I have the chance to work with governments in Germany with regulators and currently with the Council of Europe on Internet governance issues and I perceive a great hunger for expertise among policy makers and stakeholders other stakeholders there are Fundamental questions on the table as the question. What is a mere private decision by a company and what is a public affair? What does it mean for fundamental rights and rule of law? When communities do more and more rely on online platforms for communication To govern the digital transformation requires knowledge and the production of that knowledge calls for the collaborative effort of academics of various disciplines and cultural backgrounds that is our Responsibility and it also promises to be a lot of fun The pre-conferences today were already a great start and immensely insightful So I'm very much looking forward to the main conference that starts with a keynote tonight From the program of the conference you can get the impression that the topic internet rules Turned out to be a wise choice it allows for a great variety of issues for panels fish bowls and roundtables and There is very often a close link to key normative questions revolving around internet and society the topic also allows for a nuanced and Sufficiently complex approach to frame the relation between internet and society Without falling into the trap of simple deterministic constructions It's a great pleasure to be your host here in Berlin I'm from Hamburg which is by the way the most attractive city in the world But but we in Hamburg have to accept that people love the energetic colorful and fast-changing Berlin. So enjoy it I will end with words of thanks to the Humboldt University We can make use of those marvelous buildings and the corporation was excellent and to the whole team of The air working together with both friendly and extremely professional. So thanks very very much I'm now handing over to the program chair who is the perfect embodiment of the two hosts He used to work with the Humboldt Institute in Berlin It has now joined the team in Hamburg at the Brato Institute And I think he's best equipped to inspire cooperation projects between the institutes like this conference So Cornelius pushman the floor is yours. Thanks very much hello, wow, it's great to see you all and And yeah, we're thrilled to have you all here. It falls to me To make a bunch of logistical remarks about the the next few days So what I will have to say has nothing to do with the important issues For which you've come to Berlin, but with the nitty-gritty of organizing an event like this and Yeah, my name is Cornelius pushman. Let me switch to the Appropriate slide you see the angry cats. That's me if if you if if things go awry with with some of these logistical issues If you if you're wondering who I am. I'm the guy who sent you all the emails. That's me. Okay, so In case you're curious about 570 odd people have registered for a or I are this year from over 30 countries So it is going to be a big big conference And let me just run through my things I will pass over to Jenny in a moment and Jenny will then introduce the keynote speaker and Get this started on a content level So important topics. I'll actually have to turn around. This is a slightly awkward but Internet access most important for all of you. I know Please use edgerome in the coming days or get a Wi-Fi ticket at the registration There's always a little counter next to the registration where you can get Wi-Fi tickets edgerome is preferred But use that if you don't have edgerome Furthermore lunch tickets and reception tickets are in your bags. That's very important Don't just I know how it is with the the other colorful things in these bags But if you lose your lunch tickets or especially your reception ticket, you're out of luck The reception is fully booked. We can't sell any more tickets We can't do point of sales sales of any sort So if you don't hang to your ticket hang on to your ticket, you will miss a great party. So don't do that All the regular sessions are in building one which is in the courtyard I'm having orientation troubles But if you're standing in front of the main building that that building is behind There's a great map on the website on a conference website that shows the buildings They're very close to each other, but all the other sessions everything else except for the invited plenary panel tomorrow evening We'll be in that other building again. It's very very close You were already there if you were at one of the workshops today So furthermore the cafeteria is between those two buildings. That's where the lunch is you use your lunch ticket there You get multiple courses and a drink. It's very important to to have your ticket for that as well It gets kind of a little bit crowded Around noon when students are also there, but it worked out. All right today I think oh, there's a second floor at the cafeteria know that if it's really bunched up there go to the lower floor Finally during the whole conference the conference desk is in addition to registration on the fourth floor of that building And they're in room four or two. We're we're around for you if you have any questions, please come to us So Yeah, the thing about the hashtags are kind of now I've ruined it because I wanted to go through these things point by point, but anyway, there's an official hashtag There's a rebel hashtag. There's a retro hashtag and Tim Highfield is Tim here So any Tim Tim is coined the my favorite hashtag, which is the one at the very bottom there So for all of you complaining about the old hashtag being better take that. That's that's all I have to say Thank you. Oh, no, it's not all I have to say. Sorry. I have to point out to the events This is of course in the program, but just to be reminded there's a plenary panel right here in this room tomorrow evening at 7 p.m That is public so people who haven't registered for the conference can attend I expect things to be a bit crowded, but It's it's open to the public and as part of the conference, there's the There's the banquet on Friday, which you shouldn't miss the association general meeting, which you should not miss There's a great institutional memory panel headed by Annette Which you shouldn't miss or that invites you to get get involved in a OIRs institutional memory And I also really want to point out that there are great Experimental sessions in addition to the regular sessions. So check these out in the program. They're listed there If you're inclined to do something other than just listen to to papers for a moment, okay? I think that's it for me. Thank you. It's great to have you all here, and I'm passing over to Jenny Will Coleman and Will Coleman and good evening to my ladies and gentlemen Welcome to ALIR 2016 it's been a spectacular effort of daydreaming and Planning to move this conference from an idea by my crazy colleagues at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society And the Hans-Bredo Institute for Media Research now today. It is an actual live 570 person conference, which is the largest in a OIRs history. So Thank you. I Especially want to recognize a few people who have toiled. I'm looking at you Contemplated and envisioned this conference Christian Katzenbach and especially Larissa Wunderlich have been fully dedicated to local hosting And thinking about every detail of this conference from where to hold our major reception on Friday night the one We have no tickets more for To how you guys will get lunch and be fed to where the comfy seating would be over in the concrete Seat next door so I want to thank Christian and Larissa if you please stand up Please give everybody I believe Larissa has gotten maybe three hours of sleep the last two days So I also need to recognize Cornelius Pushman who you just heard from Cornelius as our program chair has had the daunting task of offering up the conference theme and his choice resonates The focus on internet rules is timely and necessary in this increasingly complex mediated world we daily experience Cornelius has also had the incredibly intense task of managing the submission process. So the Acceptances and their rejections The ultimate structure of the conference has been his vision. He has been conscientious and thorough and Typically German in his handling of this process. And so I am sincerely grateful to you Cornelius. Please stand. Let's thank you How do I advance the slide Larissa? Good. Okay, so I also want to express gratitude for our sponsors the bubbly that you might have enjoyed outside is Possible because of our sponsors. They support the receptions and the lunches all the fun things that support the undoubtedly smart Conversations and network connections that make a yr famous. So I'd like to recognize Syracuse University Microsoft Research the University of Illinois Chicago and Polydipress for the generosity and kindness in supporting a yr and in supporting you Now I'd like to turn our attention to the reason. We're actually here, which is to hear from our keynote speaker Cornelius had proposed you save and take as it was and it was just one of the many brilliant suggestions that he had Yosef and Dake is a professor of comparative media studies at the University of Amsterdam She's a world recognized scholar of digital culture and she's well traveled her visiting appointments include the Annenberg school for communication in Philadelphia My alma mater MIT Georgia Tech and the University of Technology in Sydney Her work covers a wide range of topics in media theory theory media technologies social media and digital culture She's the author of six books Three co-edited volumes and over 100 journal articles and book chapters Her most recent book which I'm certain most of you know is the culture of connectivity a critical history of social media published by Oxford University Press This book takes a critical look at the history of social networking sites Twitter Facebook Flickr and Examine some not just as communication platforms for sociality, but also as businesses with economic imperatives She's also served in several important Administrative positions. She's been chair of the Department of Media Studies from 2002 to 2006 She was Dean of the Faculty of Humanities from the University at the University of Amsterdam between 2008 and 2012 And last year she was elected as president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences as the first woman in this position She's currently working on a book project with Thomas Paul and Martin Martin De Waal titled the platform society public values in a connective world The Dutch version will be coming out in November, which should be next month I hope and the English book is coming out sometime next year, which I'll be looking forward to so tonight's lecture We'll give a preview of this project. So please join me in welcoming USA van Dijk Thanks to all of you. Thanks for being here. It's a wonderful crowds to look at all of you and Of course It's a tremendous pleasure to be invited as a keynote speaker and it couldn't have come at a ho now My PowerPoint is sort of running a wild It couldn't have come at a stranger day than today as you just heard Jenny was talking about it I became president of the Royal Academy last year It's sort of a strange job. Some of you may not even know what that entails, but it mostly entails like handing out prices and you know Sort of representing all of your scientists in the world and in academies and this year It's once in a lifetime day. I think for a president because my one of my nearest colleagues and a Dutch chemist been fearing I want a Nobel Prize So for the past six hours, I wanted to prepare for my lecture. I've been talking to the entire Dutch press corps and You know, I should have been on television right now doing sort of a live stream anything, you know Anyway, I was I'm still a little bit confused But I hope I will now you know turn to my real job tonight Which is to talk to you about the platform society and especially public values in a platform society so you've just heard from Jenny that we've been collaborating on this book and I think I may know at least one-third of the people who are in this hall and At least one-third of them have helped sort of giving input for this book So I'm tremendously grateful and of course all of you can you know, give more input for the book later next year if you want to in This book starts in 2010. I think and that was in in 10 Talton Gillespie is Tarleton here in this room. I haven't seen him yet towards Tarleton over there. There you are. Hey, Tarleton and He wrote Tarleton that in 2010 published a very seminal article that really inspired me So I wanted to mention that on the politics of online platforms and in that article as some of you may know He described various technical social political figurative meanings of platforms pretty much every kind of meaning except for oil platforms But that was about the only thing he didn't mention but platforms since have been my focus of attention and As Jenny was just pointing out in my last book this his concept of platforms inspired my culture of connectivity Which was about networked platforms becoming intricately interwoven in an ecosystem and Not only technically but also economically and socially So that's how that concept of platforms began to take on meaning for me now of course Since that book it was actually I finished it in 2012 and it was published in 13 Since I Wrote that book the last chapter on the book is about a handful of major platforms Which you see here that have become the major gateways to that ecosystem Now I pointed out how in that chapter how Google which is now alphabet of course Apple Facebook Amazon and Microsoft Microsoft Now just gobbled up LinkedIn of course since last summer You just can't keep up with the icons because you know those companies keep gobbling up each other I think Twitter will be the next one. So I will change my All these icons next week But they have started to become a very important infrastructure for online traffic And they have become more or less the core of that ecosystem So since literally since 2012 literally hundreds of thousands more platforms have emerged and are crowding the internet So what they do is they systematically connect people to things to idea to money and They're very much, you know, they're penetrating pretty much all of our public and private pockets of life And that is something that you know, I think is pretty astounding Considered what you know, what happens over the past years is that in any major Area of public and private life these platforms have become You know the major gateways to all of our social lives They haven't just simply consolidated as gateways. They have even expanded their positions as gateways to that ecosystem and I've I think I sort of took this from Tarleton, but I I'm always insistent on You know making precise definitions writing out precise definitions now before you all start taking photographs like okay I want to write down what she you know what she says here about this definition I will make sure that I make the slides available later So you won't have to be very frantic about writing down or photographing everything. So no problem. You will get them Just to make sure you know a platform is an online site that deploys automated technologies And business models to organize data streams economic interactions and social exchanges between users now those three components are the most important I think there's a platform is both technology and business models and User interaction that I think is you know the core of the theory that I'm using It's also important to say what platforms are not platforms are not simple facilitators and Platforms are not simply Standalone objects. They're very much connected very intricately connected to each other to form that ecosystem Which I will explain in just a second You know I've been a teacher pretty much all my life So what I usually do for you know first-year students I just give my definitions right in front of you I put them in front of you So you know what I'm talking about so this is my second one But then I only have one more and I won't bother you anymore with all those definitions But the platform ecosystem is what I call an assemblage of online platforms operating from Governed by its own dynamics and operating on us as on a set of mechanisms that is inscribed in its architectures Important here is that that ecosystem has its own set of rules Its own set of mechanisms and those mechanisms is you know very important And that's I think the core of what we're talking about. What do those do? What are those flat those mechanisms all about? some of you may know an article that Thomas and I published I think about three years ago on Understanding social media logic and we sort of explained how we think that social media logic works now We're pretty much reworking that into this set of mechanisms and Datafication is one of the most important principles here. That is setting emotion This this ecosystem it's pretty much every activity Translated into data that can be processed by algorithms into new kinds of value. So Datafication is a very very important driver for a dry important mechanism in this System in this ecosystem Commodification is the second one and those of you who've worked with Platforms or who've studied them, of course know that commodification can come in many forms It is basically, you know, you can say it's simply a platform's business model but it's also with its governance that defines the way in which Datafied information is transformed into value that is the way it's trans you know transforming your data and Turning it into currency because data indeed have become a very Valuable currency that we're now using just as we have been using money for the past Many centuries now. There's a number of business models that I won't bother you with but there's besides Advertisements, of course, there's data selling to third parties. There's service fees There's donations and even public money are sometimes part of a business model And then of course there are governance models You should distinguish them from business models because you can have in terms of platforms You can have for-profit non-profit public and anything in between, you know the governance models and The thing with governance models is that they're so hard to actually pinpoint and I will give you a few examples later on But governance models are maybe more important than business models And then of course finally, there's automated selection, which is sort of you know a an overall term term for data flows that are filtered by Algorithms and bots and that are allowing for automated selection for instance personalization rankings reputation mechanisms, etc now Algorithmic coding systems like selection mechanisms are often very implicit not only that they're very complex and Oftentimes they're even secrets. They're like pretty much, you know trade secrets and I think it's extremely important that we make those Implicit mechanisms Explicit so we can discuss them so perhaps we can even make them, you know, hold them accountable for Stuff, you know later on I will have the accountability discussion later on. It's actually quite right now It's a very important debate. Can algorithms for instance be held accountable? Think about the big news feeds discussion that we You know that happened a couple of months ago. I think Is news feeds is it really a an institutional selection mechanism? Can we you know, can we help Facebook as a news institution? Can we held it accountable to the same rules of selections? That for instance a media institution can be held accountable to all these questions. I think are important for that particular debate Now let's go back to that ecosystem. I just pointed out that there's you know, five platforms that are the core of that Platform ecosystem and there's those three mechanisms that are Forming the driving logic behind that platform ecosystem and I Told you what you know the I just pointed out that what? The platform platform is not it's not a facilitator and it's not a neutral thing But it's also that ecosystem and the platforms that it's made of it's not a level playing field It's a handful of you know platforms that are quickly gaining Market share and especially they're gaining market share not so much through the value that they have but particularly Through the numbers of users that they have you know Facebook 1.6 billion users and the numbers are staggering and those numbers of course are The logic behind you know network effects are basically the numbers that we count the magnitude or the The size of platforms by Now these core five platforms are pretty much enhancing the grip on the Platformization, I think this is a term that Anna Helmont used for the first time. So thank you Anna. Here's your input into this lecture Platformization of many sectors and that process of platformization is becoming extremely important in you know, and it's increasingly gaining power that Power is gained not only true for instance cross ownership and cross financing as we used to have in you know The old model of media companies, but it's true architecture and shared mechanisms And that I think is the major difference with old media company old-style media companies so Over the next you know actually in our book we will give examples of several sectors both private sectors and what used to be public sectors of Sectors that are penetrated by these platform mechanisms So to start you know in in the book there will be a number of chapters But today I will focus on just one just to give you an example of how we're dealing with you know several sectors Sectors I think are so important because Companies used to be tied to a particular sector You know you used to have big oil companies you used to have big finance companies now It's becoming more diffuse and companies are becoming you know These five big companies are becoming the core of all kinds of different sectors that are inter Connecting so take for instance the sector of urban transport where uber has become an important player of course It's now value you know its value. It's now a staggering 50 billion dollars of market value and not only that It's you know a pretty important player, but uber is partly financed by Google while Google is also its competitor You know so it's a pretty intricate company system Other players in this sector are blah blah car we go lift car to go and the interesting thing is some of them are for profit others are non-profit some are co-ops and Everything in between if we look at the news sector I just mentioned it very briefly and I won't go into details There's many I think people here in this hall. We're very interested and also expert in in the sector of news And There's many major online news sites now from the Huffington Post and Upworthy and Buzzfeed and Gawker But besides, you know those big five platforms operating as the core the center of this entire sector They're also putting up their own platforms news aggregators or distributors such as Google news and Facebook of course With its news feed so it's not only that they form the center core of that system their own also putting out their hubs and Aggregating aggregating sites in all these sectors Health I will come back to health a little later But health apps are probably I think right now the sector that is becoming the most Powerful and most proliferated of all sectors in the private and public industries health and fitness apps and as you probably see from the you know a sample of these apps Google Fit and Apple Health are major hubs in this entire sector. I will return to this particular example a little later Neighborhoods you may not notice but your neighborhoods currently are sort of you know constantly penetrated I get flyers in the in the in my mailbox pretty much every day about neighborhood apps that are now Present in my neighborhood Some of these apps are local others are organized by cooperatives some are organized or financed even by municipalities and some are pretty much you know Like the one that you see on top the green one, which is the icon for next door That's a global app that is financed by Silicon Valley angel investors So the whole range of neighborhood apps can be found in your neighborhood pretty much Now all of oh, there's a last one, of course Education, you know the field of higher education has partly moved on to platforms to becoming platformized especially a field that I've Thomas and I have described in another article Of that of massive open online courses. So what you see here is for instance Coursera Udacity edX there's a number of platforms in the Educational sector that are you know, it's becoming pretty crowded in that sector, but over the past just over the past year I think Facebook has invested massively in the platformization not just of higher education, but of primary schools Google has put out the Gaffey system, which is Google apps for education You some of you may know about that but education. I think is one of these fields that are Incredibly rapidly being penetrated by apps There's many other sectors in the book There's many more that we don't talk about that would know that we do Cover for instance finance retail hospitality food etc etc all of these sectors are currently undergoing that process of platformization now if you look at the ecosystem as such and this is you know sort of Sample sectors of that ecosystem What you see is that pretty much all areas of public and private life have been penetrated by those platforms and Those circles of sectoral platforms are revolving around the big five that you know form the hardcore of that ecosystem That system has a profound impact on the way that our societies are organized public life is Moving away from institutions institutions that pretty much organize our public life onto those platforms and That affects not just the sector itself, but society as such think for instance of Airbnb It's not just changing the hospitality sector the hotel sector Economically, but it's also changing your neighborhood dynamics. We'll come back to that example later on And that is why I would like to introduce the term platform society I promise this is the last the very last definition platform society But it's important to establish what it is. It's a society which Social economic there we have it again, you know, it's true technology social economic interpersonal traffic is Largely channeled by an overwhelmingly corporate global online platform ecosystem. That's driven by algorithms and fueled by data now I prefer the term platform society over a number of other terms and Particularly the term platform revolution. I don't like the word revolution Anyway, because I think it's sort of you know, it's a magical term But it doesn't tell you much what is it that's being revolutionized and what I think is important here It's not just that these platforms emerged, but it's the infiltrations of those plant the infiltration of platforms Into the very texture of society and that's not a revolution That's something that we are part of that we're standing by and we're looking at pretty much every day It's not a very common term yet and that's why I'm so grateful to Tarleton for Launching this term, but there were a couple of other terms over the other concepts over the past 10 years That have become very popular First the term sharing economy, of course, and as you probably know participatory culture Participatory culture echoes the early promises of the web 2.0 and that those Promises and that was pretty much the euphoria About the participation of users in our media culture in you know, building online communities I've talked about it, you know extensively in my previous book, so I won't I won't repeat out here, but that part of that euphoria since Around 2011 has sort of shifted to the term sharing the sharing economy Sharing economy still sort of breeds the ideals of participation and Communality, but sharing as some of you know even more than I do is Has become has come to mean a different thing. It's no longer longer sharing Which means, you know sharing between people and sharing in a community but it's mostly now what it means is exchanging online services or Exchanging conveniences for user data or a brokerage fee so it has come to mean an economic transaction and Often with data as currency, so that has become the meaning of sharing of sharing economy now interestingly since I think 2012 2013 besides that euphoric You know revolutionary sort of thinking more recently We have seen we have noticed concerns about the negative effects of the sharing economy and here you see an issue of time magazine In February of last year that says strangers crash my car ate my food wore my pants and it's very much about Personal discomfort, you know, we are personally put out of this advantage because of the sharing economy platforms and it's about You know, how are these platform doing potential harm to individuals not so much to society, but the two individuals Here's another example technology quarterly last year It's about the growing pains the legal barriers put up at the old economy on the one hand, you know, these were The the legislation for instance that hampers innovation and on the other hand quite contradictory actually It's articulated in terms of we need to protect consumers, you know are the small entrepreneurs It's all about how do you keep your your good safe here? How can we make sure that's secure? How can we protect property the property that you lend out as an Airbnb host or the car that you use as an Uber driver, right? So this this is the more recent discomfort that we have with the notions of the sharing economy And but there's more at stake than just those personal that personal discomfort, you know Safety security and those kind of values privacy is taken on to that More as of late, we have seen protests against disruptive platforms in private sectors For instance the hospitality sector like Airbnb here here if you can read the small text Text it says who pays for your holidays and this is about, you know Tourists crowding neighborhoods, but who pay no taxes and sometimes they leave a mess, right? Some of you may be right now at an Airbnb Hosts or whatever and please don't leave a mess. That's basically what these people are saying But more than that, you know, it says in the small print Airbnb hosts are ducking safety regulations They're you know and city councils like this is really a hot debate right now in Amsterdam The count city councils for instance have to hire more inspectors and enforce more or less common sense They have to enforce the safety rules that are you know part of that Arrangement in Amsterdam right now. There's 20,000 I think there's 20,000 Airbnb hosts and it's a huge debate with the city council right now over the past few months About how do we need to regulate, you know Not just the personal discomfort, but the public values that are changing as a result as a consequence of so many Airbnb Hosts in this city There's protests against even more general public values here for instance this protests the taking economy destroys our communities It's about the displacement of citizens who can no longer afford a rent because of rising rents in their neighborhoods, you know So this sign basically says we are citizens. We're not consumers We're not entrepreneurs and this city is not for sale So these are the the tensions between you know ordinary consumers ordinary citizens and people who are Have become micro entrepreneurs Examples from another sexes sector, which is urban transportation here we see uber protests and We've seen interestingly protest by various stakeholders here You see a protest by from licensed taxi drivers they accuse uber of ducking licenses and security measures and Also of causing unfair competition. So they're basically about the public values of fairness of safety But on the other hand, there's also protests by ubers own drivers the micro entrepreneurs that uber allows to become you know to make a buck and Interestingly uber refuses to call itself a transportation company what it says is we're not We're not a transportation company. We're in the business of connectivity. The only thing we do is we provide a pet platform We facilitate we facilitate a Supply in demand and that's you know The only thing we do is put out algorithms and a business model to make that happen Now ubers own drivers as you can see here have Objected to uber treating them as what they call wage slaves, you know the refusal to pay insurance pay benefits to pay pensions so in brief uber and Airbnb as Examples have great impact on public values They have great impact on the organization of society as we have democratically organized it but as they as is argued here they do not take the responsibilities for anchoring those public values in their companies in the way they You know, they have Made themselves part of the texture of society So these are a couple of you know platform promises and paradoxes as I would like to point out to you The platform society hinges on, you know a few promises and the first one is they want to offer personalized Services while contributing to the public good Which is you know, okay, but the implicit promise behind that, you know this line is Platforms are better at organizing society than conventional state and markets, right? That's the implicit argument behind this promise They promise to promote community to promote connectedness While bypassing all of our cumbersome institutions, you know all the institutions that you know from education to health care hospitals schools, they're trying to bypass them in order to bypass those cumbersome regulations and the implicit claim here is of course we can do without big government We can do without big business. We can do it much easier and much cheaper. That's also one of the implied promises here And finally One of these promises is they emphasize public values while obscuring private gain and you will see that very often For instance Coursera promises free education for all Patients like me a health site promise better health for everyone Next door one of these neighborhood apps You know says oh, we are gonna going to organize a smarter and much more efficient neighborhood with lots more services So those are the kind of promises that claim they work in the public interest The private gain that comes from operating those apps is often kept Obscure so that is the the contradiction the sort of you know paradox that I would like to point out here Well, of course all those goals may be noble and public Interests are at stake here and those interests are often, you know, they remain hidden behind the business models of platforms Now let's go back to public values and how we would like to anchor them because that's one of my main and The the driving questions that we have put out for this book now that Governments are increasingly bypassed, you know circumvent by platforms. How do we actually govern? how do we anchor those public values and Here's another concept that I Learned from Tarleton. So I'm really going. I'm very grateful to Tarleton, but he knows that and I'm quoting him often and He has this makes the distinction between governance of platforms versus governance by platforms and This is I think one of the core Questions that we need to take into account when talking about the platform society Our governance are mostly concerned with the governance of Platforms, you know, they talk about regulating values like safety like accuracy like privacy as they should be They should be talking about that because it is very important to take care of that regulation but there's other public values like transparency like fairness like democratic control like independence like Sustainability, you know, there's many and those are those values are increasingly governed by platforms, you know, it's the platforms that govern that push them in a certain direction and What these values are is basically very, you know, different per sector and you know, we I can't define them for each sector But it seems increasingly more difficult to govern platforms that are governing governing our society, right? Partly that's partly because values are hidden in the mechanisms the three mechanisms that I just pointed out of individual platforms and Partly on the other hand because those a lot of public values are hidden in the dynamics and the architecture of That platform ecosystem that is this large huge intricate system that is very hard for for us to Really understand, you know, because it changes every day because it's so intricate and precise Now my basic question is who rules the platform society I know we're going to have a panel tomorrow who rules the internet and Perhaps my question is taking it a little bit further who actually rules the platform society and What I mean by that question is who is involved? Who are the stakeholders who was responsible for the organization of platform societies? I basically should use the plural because of course, there's not simply one Platform society, there's many and many of those are crowding the world and that's what you see here So who can be held accountable? Well, actually, I just gave you sort of a Clear crisp definition, but that it's not as simple as that because I think the platform society is not what it seems It's a very contested concept. It's an intense ideological battlefield with many many stakeholders and I've sort of tried to Point out to meant the stakeholders here in this scheme and what we're seeing is on your guess It's on your left. Yeah, it's on your left What you're seeing is the private stakeholders, which are global corporations businesses Micro entrepreneurs consumer groups consumers and on your right. You're seeing that, you know what ideally or traditionally are the public stakeholders national and Supernational bodies governments public institutions NGOs co cooperatives collectives and of course citizens like you and me so If Habermas would be here today, and I know he's not but he would say this is my ideal public sphere If we could just, you know, try to form a balance Keep try to get to this balance between all these actors negotiate public values with all of us to come to a sort of Balanced agreement that of course is never going to happen. It's a you know, a very fierce ideological battlefield and since Public values are the common good is not a given What we're seeing is that there's constant, you know, constant power place constant struggles played out on many levels Local the city of you know the city council of Amsterdam national, you know governance governments who are trying to regulate apps And global of course you get look at the European Court for instance Now, let me give you one Example of One sector after I have a little bit to drink The health sector. How many of you of you here this hall are using health or fitness apps? Alright less than I thought but I'm not surprised of course because you know what happens to those apps, right? health and fitness apps are a sector that I'm Incredibly intrigued by because it's a huge, you know, it's a huge blossoming sector only last year You could find a hundred and sixty five thousand health and fitness apps in the app store Google's health store Google's and Apple's app stores and they're huge. There's a huge variety of them There's apps for you know diagnosis for measuring your heartbeat for glucose levels Monitor the intake of your medication But also simply to count your daily steps and I assume that most of you are doing that of course with your health apps And what they promise I just talked about the paradoxes of promises and What they promise mostly is personalized medicine personalized fitness Diagnosis and that personalized health is very much the thing of the future, but this is part of it There's an incredible variety of data flows the data vacation That I was just pointing out data flow directly from consumers to company circumvening bypassing both hospitals doctors and you know any other medical institutions that we have in our society Not only that but they're only you know the data flow from individuals to Companies and they usually do that through one of the big five platforms, but also through their hubs so both Apple and Google also have health kits and they're you know there for gathering data and They're constantly repurposed data flows can never be pinpointed. They're constantly repurposed and then of course sold to third parties They're business models the business models of health apps are particularly unclear There's a site that I always like to point out which is called patients like me and You can find this in an article that Thomas and I published in big data and society recently Patients like me points out to their customers that their business model is Or their site is not just for profit. So it's for profit It's not for profit and it's not just for profit So this is one of these examples of the in-between business models that you really you really need to either read the small print in order to get What they mean right so data have become currency in our health economy And that mostly you know what it does is that private gain is sort of hiding behind the public good argument You need to give your data your health data to whatever kind of company to bring it directly into the ecosystem Because it's for your own good, right? It's for your common sense public good Now for instance, this was a couple of months ago in Holland Insurance companies are now giving you a discount if you use Fitbit for instance You can get a discount on your premiums if you send them your fitness Fitbit scores You get like five percent off well the next step I think will be that you have to pay more for your insurance if you don't if you do not send your fitness scores So that's how norms and values change and this is pretty much, you know part of that Public value increase Finally regulation this is interesting I 165,000 apps in the app stores Governments are governments are supposed to regulate this stuff, you know They there's supposed to regulate security safety accuracy and privacy of all health devices So also of those hundred and sixty five thousand apps Well, I just noted I just learned that it's very laborious to just test one single app it takes to Dutch FDA two to six months to check the accuracy and The safety of one single app and if it gets updated you have to start all over again So that's you know where regulation stands at this point So health apps I think are just one example of it's being a very barely regulated field in the US Very recently April of night 2016 just you know four or five months ago We saw This was published the new guidance for developers of mobile health apps and What it does it tries to regulate specific public values like which is pretty much Consumer rights, of course safety security accuracy But in the way that Platforms govern healthcare there are a lot more values at stake of course than those three that they're trying to Through regulate for instance if you only and then just I wasn't I'm not even talking about insurance companies that the example that I just mentioned but Data that are used by health Health companies for instance are no longer just you know open to all Researchers a lot of these data are going straight from consumer individual consumers to companies and health researchers at Universities other institutions, you know, we're doing research into health have to buy them back from those companies So that's how you know the field has Started to work so a lot of these public values like independent research or Antidiscrimination, you know in terms of insurance companies that I think is has become a major major obstacle to regulation and Not even that but a legislator regulation has become even more difficult because every country has its own regulation and most countries are not even yet regulating so Another example is 23 and me which is a DNA profiling app. Maybe some of you know about that app It was banned from the US health markets in 2014 2013 sorry and it then went to the UK to the United Kingdom. I was it passed legislation there So now it's traded from the UK to 50 other countries including the US. So Regulation is not, you know regulated by simply one nation. It's a global It's a global field of struggle. You might say so health apps are an Incredibly intensely and battled sector and that's of course, all of you know, there's incredibly economic interests at stake in the health sector So that's what we call the platformization of health It's the proliferation of network power through that platform ecosystem now here again You see, you know those platforms and circle forming a circle around the core five system And that's platform ecosystem. It's not only, you know, heavily invested in health data through the ecosystem But also true, you know app stores to aggregators to integrate the platforms and also platform a lot of companies That used to be for instance device producers device production companies are now data firms take for instance Phillips Who produces a Dutch company? These are all Dutch examples But Phillips is of course a major health device Producer it, you know, it sells MRI machines and very, you know, specific Imaging machines and it has become it now profiles itself as a data company because it takes back the data that the MRI MRI machines produce it takes it back to the company immediately, you know directly without Hospitals having anything to say about those aggregated data. Of course, there's still privacy Regulations in place there now what you see here in this platformization system. I've just I Simply stopped making those error errors because there's many of them But what you see is that, you know, the core five platforms have all big stakes in health care It's not just their general gateways, but they also have their own hubs like Apple's health kit you see here and Google health and They're you know, they're they're simply new hubs like Facebook newsfeeds and Google news that are putting themselves where they put in themselves center stage in that particular sector So it's not just true ownership Relationships like if you look here 23andMe is very specifically connected to Google and that's well for one thing because Sarkai Brins X-Wife is The funder of you know, the founder of Google is of course Financing his ex-wife's new company, which is 23andMe It's also connected to app stores, you know Parkinson and power which and power is the app that you see on top Parkinson and power. It's a very intriguing app It's a non-profit so they don't charge and they don't you know make any money But it's distributed through the app store So the political economy of this whole system becomes you know, it changes every day but it becomes increasingly complex and You have to be sort of an expert to see how all those data flows in that platform ecosystem are Connected how they work now that is very difficult for legislators to do not only because it you know It's very complex and difficult because it also because it changes every day Now let alone for citizens who want to understand how this system works You know this Ecosystem that I now sketched and sort of you know exemplified through the sector of health That that sector I think is emblematic for those other sectors and those other sectors of course are all interconnected in that giant ecosystem where previously we had We were building trust in our society through institutions and in those and through those institutions or professional codes or professions we used to anchor institutional norms professional codes for journalists and Those codes and those institutions were subject to democratic control Now as I've just you know argued collective States and institutions are increasingly bypassed and those public values that were our governed by Platforms are usually governed sort of invisibly Imperceptibly sometimes very subtly, but in many cases. It's a process that goes by uncontrolled So my basic question is how can we build trust in a platformed world? Well, we have to know by which rules the platform ecosystem works and we have to understand How societies are governed by platforms that I think is you know one of the basic rules well the interesting well the most difficult thing is that platforms operate globally they operate globally by infiltrating local and national interest like national sectors and At that those levels they're confronting regulators and legislators and In that you know entire system when you see that Working out globally and functioning globally what you're seeing is also competing ideological hemispheres You have the US model which is basically a market model and that's a model where that very much privileges Corporate interests but favors a very small public sector Well Into the architecture of that ecosystem. What is baked into that system is very much this You know this ideological playing field these values that are imposed on literally all kinds of you know other hemispheres on the other hand you have the Chinese model and I know some of you are you know Very well versed in that model and know a lot more about that than I do that I think is you know an Incredibly important question. How do these systems sort of? Work out globally, you know, how do they? How are they contested? How do they contest each other? But that's something that I won't have time to talk about tonight And I think coming back to my main question is what is the kind of power that we as Researchers have you know our power to impact that global system is pretty limited But I think we we can help we can help make Visible how this ecosystem works and operates, but how how can we do that? last week I gave a speech to an Huffle of lawyers and legislators and I had sort of I thought well I'm going to show those recommendations to you because they always ask you for what can you do? What can you do for society? What can you bunch of internet researchers do for? the platform society how can you help us regulate this thing and I came up with these a couple of recommendations a Few of them are to users and others are to platform Developers, but these is these are the ones I put out to users require transparency in platforms that's very easy to say but it's very hard to do and Never trade convenience for public values be also vigilant be informed Well, you know, I say this with a little you know pathos, but of course, it's very hard It's it you can hardly expect ordinary citizens ordinary users to understand how each app works let alone Can you you know expect them to know how that whole complex infrastructure that ecosystem works? so I think that Governments and cooperatives and others have to stand up for the rights of citizens Not just as consumers, but really as citizens who have a right to For their public values to be protected in the platform society What can we say to developers, you know owners and developers of platforms and for one thing, you know, I Try what I try to urge them is please put building trust over long over short-term gain So long-term trust is much more important than short-term gain Be transparent about data flows, you know business models governance systems That's easy to say but very hard for companies to do and To open up systems of automated control really requires companies platform companies To explain and make explicit their choices for selections I don't know if you have seen by the way an article by written by Julia Angwin It was in the New York Times a couple of months ago and the title was make algorithms accountable Now that's an intriguing title And I think it's that's very much something that you could put up that you could ask to platform owners and developers How can you make those platforms those algorithms accountable? For instance, I just explained to you how you know Airbnb and their struggle their Contest with the the city of Amsterdam the city council Airbnb I think could easily help and help the the city council to enforce their rule to you know They have a rule for instance that says you can stay in an Airbnb Host an Airbnb host can rent out its space for 60 days per year max Now it would be really no rocket science for Airbnb for the platform to incorporate to write that Inscribe that rule that public value into Its platform right into its algorithm It doesn't do that and that's part of you know to go negotiation between the city and the platform that What's what it's all about So far they haven't done that Now I think my biggest recommendations would be to governments And I think governments are still not really seeing the importance of what the platform society is all about I think they really can be held to up to standards when it comes to defending public values Of course, they need to enforce regulation, but They can do more than that besides enforcing regulation They can also stimulate public values by Negotiate say negotiating our public interests with platform owners and then you know Once again, we can come back to the city of Amsterdam, which is currently in into this process of negotiation What they could also do is say, okay, we have inner city neighborhoods, you know, that are very crowded You do not have your 60 days you have less but other city neighborhoods that are less crowded But that there are also, you know much poorer than the city center You'll have more days and this is a way it's just an example. It's not happening. It's I just made it up But this is an example where you can actually work public negotiators can you know negotiate public values in the face of So much power residing with platforms Another example is comes from the city of Sao Paulo, which is not here other hemisphere and they're trying to regulate urban Transport apps they require for instance when they were regulating licenses for uber and other Transport platforms they require that 15% of their taxi drivers would be female in order to combat the unemployment Among female drivers. So this is another example of how can you negotiate public values with platform owners? Well, a couple of more recommendations I'll go to them very briefly but regulatory institutions are pretty much outdated think about what I just told you about health care 165,000 apps in the app stores. You cannot regulate them in the way that you used to write that regulation used to be Applied you really need to upgrade your regulation Institutions, but I'll show also your method to the digital constellations that help us enforce rules And finally, I know this is a wild idea But you know, why don't we ask our governments or even super nationally to develop a national or international? blueprint for the platform society and I think this is exactly where we as Researchers can actually help we can explain how it works. We can make codes visible We can actually do something about, you know developing co-developing this platform society Into a way that is sustainable and that helps the platform become society become hopefully more democratic To conclude and I think each of the sectors that you know what we're thinking about and that we tried to work out It's really a field of struggle. It's a field of struggle and negotiation Negotiation between users developers Governments corporations micro entrepreneurs, and they all have a big stake in the platform society Now once again, I think governments have a special responsibility to organize that platform society And it's currently really a regulatory Wild West so we really need to attend to that But the main question for me, you know currently is and I hope you can help me with that because I'm we're still struggling it Thomas and I are trying to put it in the book But we know that we can't solve it in just six chapters or an hour long speech tonight But the main question is how can we help govern the platform society while? Platforms are such a powerful governing force Well, that's basically asking to square a circle So particularly in Europe, I think where most of these clashes take place The platform infrastructure here It's privately owned mostly by American companies and the public values that in Europe here in Germany But also in the Netherlands where they're traditionally anchored and operated in the public sector now I think the public sector may be one of the most you know well and Contested spaces in our societies right now I Haven't resolved this question. I think we won't for the next year or so But I think it's incredibly important to ask this question while the platform society is still under construction So building trust in that platform society Really depends on us, you know us. I mean researchers designers developers people who are really into You know the how question how can we make this visible? How can we see? Show people how it works, and we really need they really need our help in terms of you know to enforce Democratically chosen public values, and that's why I'm so emphatic abouting about asking you for help in this platform Society, thank you very much. These are the people I would like to thank and of course all of you Thank you for being here Now we have time for questions just a couple of things I want to remind you about we are recording this lecture, and you'll see their cameras around the hall if you Have questions that you'd like to ask, but maybe don't want them to be public I'm sure you say will be available for a few minutes after to ask those questions There are microphones where our two mics so Axel and Kelly Axel Bruins our vice president next year taking over this role. I can't wait and Kelly Quinn our treasurer in the back there will be coming around With microphones, so raise your hand if you'd like to ask a question of you say And I will if it's okay. I will call on them and then okay Oh, yeah, and could you stand up and and say your name? When you ask the question Hi, my name is Anush Markarian. I work at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland. Thank you very much for you stimulating talk I I saw a kind of gap in in in your Talk and you know you talk about the Private interests and how these are hidden under the sort of in the discourse around Public value and implicitly or at least it's how I understood it you meant the sort of private interests in relation to these platforms but what you didn't mention is the Sort of vested interests of the incumbents all these terrible Cartels and monopolies the taxi companies are a very good example or the hotel chains Those are also private interests and you know, I've recently moved to Frankfurt and Experienced the taxi there. I mean, how is it possible for a taxi ride a 15 minute taxi ride to cost 50 euros? I mean And they regulated uber out of Frankfurt and how it how it cannot be good for for for us as consumers and for the whole Society, you know, I think I would be interested in in your view on on the kind of this this other side That I think is also very important in in this overall discussion in this area No, it's a very legitimate question, of course and what we we of course there, you know, I pointed out there's various This this is a whole contest between Established companies, you know who already have those Private stakes and the newcomers who are interested in contesting that market now that happens to any markets That that's for sure the thing here is and that's why I showed those protests is that of course They're undercutting prices and they're undercutting the economic value of those companies that they have built up over the years But they're doing that by for instance Asking less money to the drivers but not paying their health insurance not paying The drivers a fee so they can that can account for collective health benefits For instance and a number of things especially in Europe where those benefits are pretty much 50 percent up to 50 percent in Holland of Public values, you know that account for public values. You have to You have to account for that somewhere, you know, either in the price for your taxi For your taxi or in the price for other drivers Wherever you pay it we have to sort out where we are paying those collective values And that is something that I mentioned in my that I try to you know get across in my talk is Where is this part that we used to call a collective feast that we used to call collectivity is it simply disappearing? No, it's not disappearing. We're going to pay for it one way or the other but which way right? So I'm not saying those incumbents are you know companies that don't have any private interest on the contrary They do have a lot of private interest at least what was regulated in that old economic models Was that those 50% of collective fees paying for the collective? Collectivity not the connectivity the collectivity of what we all share in terms of public values That is going to be paid for by those fees And it's not that I'm accusing you know Uber or what whatsoever of not paying those fees But they have to if we want to keep up the system of where public values are accounted for in our economic system We have to come up with an alternative whether that's for instance You know a basic income for everyone that could be a model I don't know but especially European model European economic models have had You know collective values inscribed into their institutional system if this system is outmoded Old-fashioned or whatever you call it. That's fine But how are we do we want to pay for those values somewhere at another place? That's the question that I'm posing and I'm posing it as an open question not to sort of you know accuse the incumbents of You know whatever because if it's bad service, it's bad service. You shouldn't take those taxis I'll go over there Hi over here Over yonder Hello Hi. Hi. Thanks for a great talk. I'm very inspiring introduce yourself. My name is Sal Humphreys I'm from University of Adelaide in South Australia And I admire optimism in thinking that government has an incentive to regulate the corporate sector Whereas to my way of reading it at least in Australia and the US. I think the government is very much in cahoots with the corporations the public private partnership Sort of scenario comes to mind also that you know government security Agencies benefit hugely from the data collection that comes to them through corporate Activities and so they have very little incentive to actually regulate and restrict that data flow that comes to them via a backdoor and The security arms of government may be in conflict with some other arms of government such as Consumer protection agencies or privacy agencies, but the security wing seems to me to be the dominant force within government or you know to have More clout. So I think that Sure, yeah, so do you want to comment perhaps? Yeah, absolutely. I you think governments will actually step into this because I'm not sure that they will I know exactly I think I know exactly what you mean because a lot of governments are You know, we what we call in bed with the private industries and they're you know We're doing a lot of co financing co and that's usually according to this paradigm of being very enthusiastic about all kinds of technological innovation that you know help Companies become bigger and you know more in charge of what they develop and now I don't I can answer this in two ways. Yes, I'm sort of an optimist I've always been and I try to tell my story to governments At least to make them aware of what is happening and of course, I'm not anti Companies or anti government in whatever sense. I want my I think my first task as a researcher My and my first goal is to make them aware of how this works And it really surprises me each time I talk to government regulators Authority councils, whatever. I'm always surprised at how little they are aware of the mechanisms that play underneath that play Under, you know, the promises and paradoxes that I pointed out. There's simply, you know, there's on the one hand, there's Reluctance to you know to work with with governments from to work with companies from regulators on the other hand, there's also a sort of Exhaustion they don't they have no clue what how they're going to Update their the regulation the regulatory mechanisms that they're used to now and that's indeed a very daunting task because how can you, you know, for instance health and forcing health regulations? How can you do that with, you know, eps in the in 165,000 health apps in the store right now and more coming and that I think and that's probably why I'm an Well, yeah, I'm probably an optimist in hard and soul But I try to keep telling governments. This is really what you need to be aware of right now And if you don't please be Aware of how you can change this in the future and how it's transforming our our daily life now Each time or each time we've been sort of pitching this story for you know a number of months now And it is there's so much ignorance in the field But also among Regulators who are have no clue have no idea what they're talking to because you know platform owners are a different kind of Company than they used to talk to so there's also there's all you know a lot of ignorance and a lot of naivete About how this is going to play out. So Yes, I'm an optimist and no I think we can still do something to actually you know to really make it To put our stamp on how the platform society is going to which direction it's going to develop into over here, please Thank you for a very stimulating presentation. I'm grant blank of the Oxford Internet Institute I guess you have great faith in regulation is what I noticed in this presentation But there's a whole set of issues around regulators that people have been talking about for many years And the example here Taxicab regulation is only one of many where regulators have colluded with Private companies to raise the price of a product well above the marginal cost We can look at that in airlines. We can look at that in freight rail. We can look at that in telecommunications in North America You know and the list is quite extensive. There's a large literature on what's called regulatory capture So I guess the question is why should we expect regulators to act in the public interest? When their history is that they act in the interests of an oligopoly of private corporations. Yeah You know that it's a very good question I talked to a hall of lawyers last Friday and this was exactly what they told me They were lawyers and they're mostly, you know, also working for legislators It's not that I really believe that legislators are going to make the difference And I don't think they will they were going to get the instruments to do that But if there's nothing if there's no regulators and it's not that I put all my trust and you know all my money on Regulators and legislation, but what I'm looking for is a I think a dialogue with whoever is involved in this whole You know in this what I pointed out in the Contested play of where do we start with we don't start with regulation, but we don't end with regulation So I think it's one of the many actors in this whole battlefield it this whole contested Play of what we're looking for and I don't think that Regulators are going to give the answers, but I think it is our tasks as As researchers to explain to them what the underlying mechanisms are and I'm pretty shocked by how little they know about How platforms work what they do what they do to data how they're etc etc And that's even more than that, you know, they have private interest more than Citizens interest at that's their main concern Basically, I think this is no answer to your question, but Sometimes I just don't know where to start and I think the best way that to start with is what? You do know and sort of explain that to as many people as you know and explain the underlying system So that's where we want to start with this book Good. Okay, everybody. Please join me in thanking Jose van Dijk for a very interesting conversation tonight