- During her speech on the second day of the Meeting on Digital Rights, data expert and whistleblower behind the publication of the “Facebook Papers,” Frances Haugen, called on brands to allocate a small percentage of their advertising investment to online platforms that comply with transparency standards.
- Giuliano da Empoli, political consultant and author of The Wizard of the Kremlin: “We have laws, and we are not applying them because of fear and geopolitical issues. Laws can be debated. They are smart laws, so let’s start by enforcing them.”
- Carl Öhman, researcher and specialist in digital legacy: “Digital platforms are becoming the cemeteries of our time. It is important to discuss which data deserve to be preserved for posterity.”
Transparency of platforms and the protection of young people in digital environments are at the heart of the second day of the International Meeting on Digital Rights, organized in Barcelona by the Government of Spain and Mobile World Capital within the framework of the Digital Rights Observatory. The event featured data expert and whistleblower behind the publication of the “Facebook Papers,” Frances Haugen, who criticized the lack of transparency among major social media platforms and their focus on profits without considering the effects of their content. In her view, “when platforms had to choose between public safety and profits, they chose profits.”
Haugen recalled that “for a while, it seemed that things had changed and that platforms were aware of the negative effects of their services, but those lessons did not last.” The former Facebook employee lamented that this is no longer the case and argued that “we can now appear before a judge with documents about how these tools operate and demand full information about what our children are consuming.”
Haugen also defended legal action, referring to a recent Los Angeles jury ruling concerning the design of addictive and harmful algorithms targeting minors by digital platforms. “A six-million-dollar penalty to compensate the damage caused to a single person may seem irrelevant, but it matters, because if there are 150,000 affected children in the United States, the figure rises to a trillion dollars. These are numbers that create consequences.”
Regarding the current functioning of platforms, Haugen stated that “they are focused on the attention economy: people provide attention, platforms sell it, and advertisers buy it. That means they can worsen the user experience and still generate profits, as long as they improve the way they retain attention.”
To change this paradigm, the expert called for progress toward “a digital business model that prioritizes user trust.” To encourage this shift, Haugen presented an initiative urging brands to allocate 10% of their advertising investment to platforms and social networks that comply with certain transparency standards, such as publishing metrics about their real impact on users.
Among the proposed measures is the implementation of regular user surveys — especially among minors — to assess the real impact of social networks on issues such as addiction, sleep, academic performance, and exposure to unwanted content. She also emphasized the genuine commitment of platforms to share the results of these surveys “to promote transparency with users.”
In this context, she highlighted regulatory initiatives promoted by the European Union, which have made progress in demanding greater transparency, although they still face resistance from major platforms.
Digital rights in the face of the new “digital chaos”
For his part, Giuliano da Empoli, president of the Volta think tank and author of the bestseller The Wizard of the Kremlin, addressed in his presentation how political actors use data and algorithms to influence entire societies. Through his analysis, he explores the logic of “digital chaos,” an environment in which virality and polarization become tools of power, redefining the rules of democratic systems.
Regarding the regulation of the digital environment, da Empoli referred to “the American model, where they are powerful but incredibly dystopian.” He also mentioned the Chinese model, a country “where they have understood that this is a matter of power, not merely political or economic.” Finally, regarding Europe, he concluded that it represents “a democratic model for digital technology and AI that is perfectly possible, but does not yet truly exist.”
Da Empoli also contributed to the debate on whether digital rights can establish effective limits to these forms of influence in order to balance power among citizens, platforms, and governments in the digital era. “There is an alliance between populists who want to return to the past and posthuman visionaries who want to move beyond the human condition. You do not need to agree on the final goal, only on what you want to get rid of — namely, whatever limits your power,” he explained.
Data and post-mortem privacy
During the second day of the 1st Global Digital Rights Forum, Oxford Internet Institute researcher and digital legacy specialist Carl Öhman took part, together with Simona Levi — activist and promoter of the digital rights advocacy and awareness platform Xnet — in a debate on how to protect our digital legacy (social media profiles, images, recordings, biometric traces, etc.) after death.
Some of the topics discussed during the session included the management of digital identity after death, the monetization of digital memory, and the role of platforms, families, and institutions in decision-making.
“In the next three decades, 2.2 billion people will die and leave behind vast amounts of data. By 2060, there will be more deceased Facebook users than living ones. This data constitutes the digital heritage of societies. Whoever controls this data will control how societies relate to their collective past,” Öhman explained.
During the session, the speakers highlighted the need for a legal framework that guarantees the limits of privacy beyond life itself.