Taylor Owen

Election integrity and platform governance updates

September 22 2019|Comments (8)

I haven’t been doing a good job of updating this site, and a full refresh is in development, but I wanted to pin some recent work at the top. Below is some info on recent work on the Canadian election monitoring project, on platform governance, and a range of writing, talks and media on both.

Platform Governance

As part of my work with the Center for International Governance Innovation I have recently published two projects.

The first is a paper, The Case For Platform Governance, in which I argue for platform governance as a frame for organizing a wide range of often disparate digital policies, and I propose a typology for a comprehensive platform governance agenda.

The second is an essay series, Models for Platform Governance, which I edited featuring 16 pieces proposing models for platform governance. My introduction to the series is here.

The Digital Democracy Project

This is a joint initiative led by the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University and the Public Policy Forum. We are currently doing a large scale monitoring project of the Canadian election.

The project has two components. An online monitoring effort that is collecting and analyzing social and traditional media data, being led by Derek Ruths at McGill, and a survey effort that is doing weekly national surveys and a metered online consumption study being led by Peter Loewen at the University of Toronto. Together we are seeking to track the online media ecosystem during the election and to assess behaviour change based on exposure to both political and media narratives as well as disinformation. We published weekly reports through the election and will be producing an extensive post election report. We have released seven reports to date, which can be found here:

Report 1: Media, Knowledge and Misinformation
Report 2: The Climate Change Conundrum
Report 3: Polarization and its Discontents
Report 4: Talking Past Each Other on Immigration
Report 5: Fact-Checking, Blackface and the Media
Report 6: Political Advertising
Report 7: The Partisan Playground

I am also the Co-PI of the Digital Election Research Challenge, with Elizabeth Dubois, which is funding 18 research teams to study the online ecosystem during the Canadian election. Further details of this collaboration can be found here.

Finally, I am involved in the production of an election podcast called Attention Control.The show is hosted by Kevin Newman and produced by Antica. I do weekly segments on the show, our research is integrated into the podcast, and a detailed interview about the project can be found in the second half of this episode (starts at: 21:28). And some reflections on the election can be found in our post election episode here.

Recent Media

Front Burner podcast interview on Christchurch Call
CBC The National feature report on Election Integrity
The National feature story on Digital Democracy Project
Attention Control podcast interview about Digital Democracy Project.Interview about project (starts at: 21:28)
CBC The House interview about Digital Democracy Project
National Observer talk about election interference
Global National news segment on regulation social media
CPAC interview about Christchurch call
CBC The Current interview about election interference: How safe are Canada’s elections from fake news on Facebook?

Recent Writing

The Case For Platform Governance, CIGI Paper
Models for Platform Governance, CIGI essay series
Why Platform Governance, essay series introduction
Who will answer the Christchurch Call? Nobody, if tech platforms continue ungoverned, The Globe and Mail
Big Tech’s net loss: How governments can turn anger into action, The Globe and Mail
The era of Big Tech self-governance has come to an end, The Globe and Mail
We can save democracy from destructive digital threats, The Globe and Mail
The new rules for the internet – and why deleting Facebook isn’t enough, The Globe and Mail
Democracy Divided: Countering Disinformation and Hate in the Digital Public Sphere, PPF.
Ungoverned Space: How Surveillance Capitalism and AI Undermine Democracy, CIGI

Recent Presentations

Testimony at the International Grand Committee
Humber College President’s Lecture: Why is Everyone Mad at Tech…and what to do about it.
Salon Speaker Series Talk: Why FakeNews Matters.
CIVIX Video: Behind the screens: Who Decodes what I view online
Dalton Camp Lecture (CBC Ideas): How Internet Monopolies Threaten Democracy
CIGI Video: Ungoverned Space: How Surveillance Capitalism and AI Undermine Democracy.