The International Press Institute (IPI) is proud to take part in the 11th edition of the world’s leading summit on human rights in the digital age – the RightsCon 2022 conference.
From Monday, June 6 to Friday, June 10, 2022, RightsCon will take place entirely online, spanning multiple time zones, featuring a program of more than 350 sessions. One of the online sessions will be hosted by IPI.
IPI panel: Democratizing Algorithms for News in Fragile Democracies
Thursday, June 9 | 06:30 US Pacific time / 15:30 CEST
Recent reports suggest that global digital platforms are relatively more responsive to issues in developed countries, but they disregard what happens in developing countries where their technological features, like algorithms, affect human rights, including press freedom and equal access to news. In this session, editors and IPI members from different countries including Turkey and India where critical media outlets experience bias in terms of visibility and public access to their content on search engines will engage in a conversation with Google and Facebook representatives. The panelists will discuss and elaborate on the existence of an “algorithmic bias” on digital platforms, entrapping users in their closed news and information bubbles.
A well-informed public plays a vital role in combatting democratic backsliding in hybrid regimes as repressive governments exercise uncontested power over access to information and its instruments. Therefore, the responsibility falls upon global technology platforms as well as citizens, journalists and other actors to provide unabated access to diverse sources of news. With this session, we aim to discuss the problems faced in restrictive state structures that are disadvantageous to independent journalists and its citizens, hear from the media experts from the field through examples, and map out solutions with global digital platforms in collaboration to minimize the damage to public’s right to access news. We envisage the discussion to kindle the spark of a coalition between the providers and distributors of quality journalism and to set standards on how algorithms should treat news content in fragile democracies.
Speakers
Supriya Sharma, Executive Editor, Scroll.in, India
Alexandria Walden, Global Head of Human Rights, Google , USA
Jeffrey Horwitz, Reporter, Wall Street Journal, USA
Urška Umek, Head of Media Unit; Secretary of MSI-RES, Council of Europe
Facilitator: Emre Kızılkaya, Project Editor, Journo.com.tr , Turkey; IPI Executive Board member