Recent major investments prove that the Internet is not only about protocols and faster telecommunication infrastructures. Soon we are going to experience a totally new paradigm of the internet. Silicon Valley made a strong bet, that the next-generation Internet should be underpinned by Virtual Reality technologies and will be built by the gaming industry. Epic…
Immersive VR & Gender Immersive Social VR technologies, such as AltspaceVR, VRChat or the upcoming Facebook Horizon introduce new means of synchronous online communication. The next-gen, emergent VR technologies allow significant immersion, sense of presence and expressivity while ensuring strong privacy – you choose ‘what to reveal and what to conceal’. That particular property of…
Gender & Social Media – COMPACT Report Technological development and convergence require comprehensive exploration of how various dimensions of our life are affected by the new technologies, and by social media, in particular. Among its awareness-raising goals, COMPACT also analyzes how social networks respond to the gender challenges in the digital environment in a special…
COMPACT Immersive Technologies Symposium: Virtual Reality technology and its impact The objective of the COMPACT project (EC, Horizon 2020) is to increase awareness (including scientific, political, cultural, legal, economic and technical areas) of the latest technological discoveries among key stakeholders in the context of social media and convergence. A fruitful trend in COMPACT three-year research…
COMPACT Horizon 2020 project experience: Virtual Reality communication and its implications Virtual Reality (VR) is more than just a new communication channel. It is an entirely new paradigm of participation. Major VR affordance is Immersion and Presence. By those terms we understand the specific experience of the individual engaged in conversation or interactive activity where…
COMPACT experience: the convergence of Virtual Reality and Mainstream Media As the extended reality technology progresses fast, there is a less and less need for physical presence of the actors and performance in the locations presented to the viewer Also the costs of post-processing such as the efforts required to edit the “Green & Blue”…
Symposium on 5G: “5W on 5G” We have released our report on 5G symposium. We believe that this material provides interesting insights into the challenges in 5G infrastructure rollout such as late COVID-19 & the alleged 5G link conspiracy theories. We highlight the benefits and the possibilities brought by the 5G technologies in the are…
Online workshop on “European courts and digital media” The Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), in collaboration with the University of Castilla-La Mancha, organized an online workshop on “European courts and digital media” under the framework of the COMPACT project. This invitation-only online workshop brought together researchers from across Europe to discuss new…
E. Psychogiopoulou and F. Casarosa, ‘Fundamental Rights in National Social Media Jurisprudence: A Study of Higher and Appellate Courts’, [2020] European Human Rights Law Review, issue 2, p. 164-175 Abstract This article examines national court decisions on social media in a selected set of EU Member States, aiming to identify and analyze their fundamental rights…
An Exploratory Study of Global and Legal Discourses on Social Media Regulation Andrej Skolkay – School of Communication and Media (Slovakia)
The European Digital Services Act package (DSA) The Digital Services Act package was announced by the European Commission as a part and oarcel of the European Digital Strategy. The aim of the measure is to strengthen the Single Market for digital services and foster innovation and competitiveness of the European online environment. The new Digital…
Smart Society – ‘Fake Analytica’ Style? Smart Cities and Regional Development Journal (v3. i1. 2019) Posted: 3 Jul 2019 Bissera Zankova Media 21 Foundation Date Written: March 10, 2019 Abstract The article will focus on the problems generated by the information disorder including the recent “Analytica” scandal and how they imperil the creation of a…
Digital Library by Dr. Bissera Zankova
Lisbon Seminar Report
Media literacy as a psychological “vaccine” against manipulation
GLOBAL APPROACHES TO SOCIAL MEDIA REGULATION (TAXONOMY)
Kyiv Symposium – Internews Ukraine
Kyiv Simposium – “Revision of the Historic Propaganda” – Presentation
Media Convergence and Social Media – Fake news and validation of information in social networks, Kyiv, Ukraine 12 March Presentation by Dr Lukasz Porwol, Data Science Institute, Insight Centre for Data Analytics, NUIG
Kyiv Simposium – “National court rulings on social media: The free speech dimension” Presentation by Evangelia Psychogiopoulou, Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy
HYBRID THREAT DECOMPOSITION METHODOLOGY: BIG DATA ANALYSIS BY ATTACKINDEX.COM Presentation by Elena Shnurko Tabakova
E-platform for communication between Ukrainian journalists and experts Presentation by Anastasiia Shyrina
EURODIG 2019 COMPACT partners took part in the organization of the Plenary 7 Session: “Tackling Online Harms” and Workshop 10 “Blockchain and privacy” for Eurodig 2019 Link to our Wiki Discussion page on organizing Plenary 7 Link to our Wiki Discussion page on Blockchain and Privacy Workshop 10
EuroDIG 2020 Forum forum | live transcript | live stream Day 1 / 11 June 2020 (all times CEST/UTC +2) 11.00 – 11.30 Studio open, arrival of participants 11.30 – 13.00 WS 4: Innovative uses of blockchain for public empowerment 13.00 – 14.30 Lunch break – Music relaxation 14.30 – 16.00 WS 6: Social media – opportunities, rights and responsibilities…
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Smart citizens for Smart cities: the role of social media for expanding local democracy (The case of local referendums in Bulgaria) Author: Bissera Zankova, Media 21 The purpose of the study is to analyze the role of social media to boost democratic citizenship and contribute to the creation of smart environment through the perspective of…
Report on Riga Symposium The symposium was organized by the University of Latvia Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS) on the 10th of December. Latvian researchers and opinion leaders, together with European partners, presented the latest findings in the disinformation and media literacy field as well as discussed the future challenges that the digital media landscape…
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Sofia Symposium – COMPACT Project (Bulgarian Translation) Presentation by Dr Bissera Zankova
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The 5th Congress of the Polish Communication Association, entitled “Media Power: People – Organisations – Technologies”, aims at discussing the notion of media power, from the internal (organizational) and external (media ecology) perspective. Reading Materials
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Materials from Regional COMPACT Symposium “Propaganda/disinformation, multi-lingual media, and social media regulation” The University of Latvia, Faculty of Social Sciences, Isaiah Berlin auditorium (Lauvas street 4, Riga, Latvia), on 10 December 2019.
Brussels COMPACT Symposium
PREVIOUS EVENTS
University of Latvia
Smart society and information disorder Smart citizens for smart cities: the role of social media for expanding local democracy (the case of local referendums in Bulgaria) Presentation by Bissera Zankova, Media 21 Full-text PDF at: http://www.scrd.eu/index.php/scrd/article/view/35
The availability of studies which assess the implementation and performance of social media (SM) regulation within European Union countries is currently sub-optimal.
This study provides a global overview of some traditional but mostly innovative approaches that have been suggested for social media (SM) regulation as presented in global and local media discourses. The aim is first to provide an overview of the debate and the main arguments and concerns, and second to systematise this in order to…
Have you ever wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of the digital environment? To have a map of the Internet measuring its compliance with human rights, evaluating its openness and accessibility, and assessing the involvement of different actors and communities in its governance? If so, UNESCO’s Internet Universality Indicators are for you.…
A Framework for Assessing Internet Development The Internet has developed rapidly into a communications medium which continues to transform access to information, opportunities for expression, and many aspects of government and business for people around the world. It has become a global marketplace for ideas, goods and services. It has both facilitated the enjoyment of…
The Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain represent an unprecedented opportunity for the enterprise and the public sector. Every institution capable of exploiting these technologies will have a chance to radically streamline and enhance existing processes, create entirely new business models, and develop innovative products and services for a new generation of…
Disinformation and democracy: The home front in the Information War DISCUSSION PAPER Paul Butcher EUROPEAN POLITICS AND INSTITUTIONS PROGRAMME 30 JANUARY 2019 Table of contents Executive summary 3 Introduction 3 A threat to democracy? 4 The business model of falsehood 5 2.1 The new tools 5 2.2 The new demand 7 Existing measures and their…
Bissera Zankova, Media 21 UNESCO is one of the international organisations in the COVID-19 crisis that carry out continuous and in-depth research on disinformation issues. In addition to analysing the forms and impacts of false information in the time of pandemic, UNESCO clarifies the range of responses to this content in its brief titled “Disinfodemics,…
Germans place the highest value on privacy compared to the U.S. and Latin American countries. Across countries, people place the highest value on keeping financial and biometric information private —balance and fingerprint data in particular. Germany’s status as the country with highest value for privacy is driven largely by extremely strong preferences for keeping…
Research done within the framework of the COMPACT project examined national court cases on social media and convergence in a selected set of COMPACT countries. The following report discusses the jurisprudence of the higher and appeal courts under review, investigates patterns of judicial reasoning and looks at judicial interaction between courts. Our sample includes 147…
Mark Zuckerberg published an op-ed in Financial Times titled Big Tech needs more regulation, on February 17, 2017. He outlined there some ideas about the development of regulatory solutions according to Facebook. These ideas are based on the White Paper produced by Facebook and titled Charting a Way Forward..Online Content Regulation. These regulatory frameworks should…
Educational video for Medical Realities on Basic Life Support During Covid – 19 for training medical staff. The project was created during lockdown in UK using entirely online network methodology for media production. Students from Escape studios volunteered to contribute to the production aiding NHS by working from home computers and using online tools for…
Mediaframe Studios presents: Episode 1: “Identity Theft” by Brigita Auskalnyte Content creators usually have a following – followers. It is portrayed as a crowd that follow the creator. Within the crowd there is always someone there wanting to use the artist. So they sneak up, steal either their work or even their identity and use…
Mediaframe Studios presents: Episode 2: “Wild Wild Web” by Isaac Linkens Information disorder is a term that is increasingly being used as an umbrella for the concepts of disinformation, misinformation and malinformation. It proliferated as a novel and useful term to describe the unwanted state of information pollution online, which has sparked an intensive academic…
Mediaframe studios presents: “Bittersweet” by Shazell Vassal Hall We start from the basic premise that gender equality comprises an important aspect of the general issue of equality in society perceived as social involvement, use of and benefiting from all social opportunities on an equal footing by everyone. It is a fundamental human rights’ principle and…
Regional Symposium on Social Media Regulation – Riga, 10 December 2019 Report on “Disinformation, Media Literacy, and Social Media Regulation” Latvian researchers and opinion leaders, together with European partners, presented the latest findings in the disinformation and media literacy field as well as discussed the future challenges that the digital media landscape presents for scientists,…
Publication from NOVI SAD 10th International Conference THE BRIDGES OF MEDIA EDUCATION 2018 “Fighting fake news and hoaxes in the age of convergence: evaluation of fact-checking and debunking organizations’ performance” Bissera Zankova, Media 21 Foundation, Bulgaria Abstract With the proliferation of new information and communications technologies, the quality of the information environment is…
EuroDIG2020 – Trieste – Day 1
Challenges and dilemmas for the national regulatory authorities in the age of convergence with respect to hate speech Since the time of their inception media regulatory bodies have always faced big challenges. The latter pertain either to their status, structure, and independence or to their competences and the effectiveness of the control they exercise over…
Fighting fake news and hoaxes in the age of convergence: performance evaluation and policies against information disorder Bissera Zankova, Media 21 Foundation, Bulgaria Abstract With the proliferation of new information and communications technologies, the quality of the information environment is a question that becomes of paramount importance for every person and society. The veracity…
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This research and policy paper summarises the key findings and recommendations from up-to-date performance analyses of European organisations and initiatives fighting fake news. These findings and recommendations represent the direct outcome of the piloting of an entirely novel methodology for defining key indicators for performance evaluation of fact-checking organisations in a number of…
Ms. Andreana Atanasova, Deputy minister responsible for information technology and communication of Bulgaria: 5G will help economic growth and will create jobs.
Riga Symposium: Compact Project Presentation by Oles Kulchytskyy Coordination and Support Action 3 years project Nov 2017 – Nov 2020
Habits of using Internet-based media Presentation by Velta Skolmeistare
Bissera Zankova, Media 21 Undermining the right to health could generate serious risks for society and generations ahead. Disinformation represents a hazardous tool that can seriously jeopardise this right during the raging COVID-19 pandemic. In such grave crisis, disinformation can prove more toxic and perilous than ever. These arguments motivated UNESCO to coin the term…
Standards in the digital society should be responsive to gender equality Standards are key contributors to an inclusive digital society. Products, systems and services must be mutually compatible and interoperable, so that people can communicate with each other through different devices. The Internet of Things (IoT) represents a stage towards full digitization and also relies…
Standardization and coordination (the case of BG) Dr. Bissera Zankova, Media 21 Foundation General observations The primary objective of standardisation is to define voluntary, technical or quality specifications with which current or future products, production processes or services may comply (REGULATION (EU) No 1025/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of…
Standardisation in the Digital Single Market – before and after 2020 Standardization issues in the new technological environment are of increasing relevance for Europe. “Media 21” Foundation presents excerpts from the latest European documents compiled by the information society expert dipl.eng Anelia Dimova, Bulgaria. The process of European Standardisation The objective that European…
Conference on media security, held in Sofia, Bulgaria Dr. Bissera Zankova, “Media 21” Foundation Nowadays, the topic of debates is no longer whether or not society should digitize – we have already immersed in the digital reality. Companies know they must digitize in order to compete, organizations realize that Internet is the foundation of…
Social media regulation – a proposition for a social media arbitration mechanism Dr. Bissera Zankova, Media 21 Foundation Dr. Valeriy Dimitrov, professor at the Legal Faculty of the University of National and World Economy, Sofia Introduction The issue of how to regulate social media platforms, including social networks, is gaining momentum among stakeholders.…
International community against disinformation in the situation of COVID-19 pandemic While the corona virus crisis is escalating, the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made the admonition that the world is not only immersed in a pandemic but is also facing “a dangerous epidemic of misinformation” about COVID-19. He announced a U.N. campaign based on scientific knowledge…
The corona virus crisis and its digital implications The emergence of Corona Virus is related to a number of areas that can be explored to show its multiple consequences. The virus has made people consider its digital implications, among others, and notions such as “digital health” and “digital epidemiology” have come quickly to the fore.…
Corona virus and disinformation These days disinformation is developing as fast as the coronavirus spread. This is a reason for worry: the World Health Organization (WHO) is concerned about an “infodemic,” a flood of accurate and inaccurate information about COVID-19. However, it is not currently possible to trace any of the conspiracy narratives it…
The multifarious effects of GDPR The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a milestone in the regulation of data and privacy of individuals residing in the European Union (EU). It is an instrument that establishes the minimum level of personal data protection throughout all 28 EU Member States. In that sense, individuals’ names, photos, posts…
Are European children protected well online? The European Parliament and other stakeholders have put a lot of effort to protect the rights of children in the digital environment. But are minors effectively protected in practice? There is growing evidence of harm to children online – both to their safety and security, as well…
CYBERCRYMINALS: Complex Times Ahead “Dangerous times have come. In the future, we need to be more vigilant about what we can trust on the web. This is a time when we have to rely on reputable news sources we are confident in” Peele concludes speaking through Obama’s image. Deepfake algorithms are likely to be…
Fears and speculations in Bulgaria after National Children’s Strategy draft project was introduced In April 2019 it was officially stated that the Bulgarian government decided to put the National Children’s Strategy on halt. Bulgarian media announced that, at the request of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, work on the National Children’s Strategy project would cease due to…
The personal data of millions hacked in Bulgaria What exactly happened? The BBC reported on 17th of July, 2019 that personal data belonging to millions of Bulgarians has been stolen in a cyber-attack on the country’s National Revenue Agency (NRA). The files, sorted into 57 folders, included numerous personal details, amongst which were…
Issues related to the National Revenue Agency personal data leak Was the media and public institutions’ reaction adequate? Ten days after huge arrays of information were stolen from the National Revenue Agency (NRA), Veni Markovski, blogger and journalist, one of Internet pioneers in Bulgaria, comments on the failure in the information system of…
The case of social media used for donations of citizens and potential medical data protection: Example for the potential constructive and destructive use of social media for social good In February 2019, the Commission for Personal Data Protection of Bulgaria issued a statement about the medical documents regulation in social media. The topic…
UK’s ambitious plan for addressing all online harms HM Government: Online Harms, White Paper The UK White Paper puts forward a new regulatory framework for tech companies, moving beyond self-regulation. The framework will be overseen by an independent regulator (Ofcom is seen as a “strong candidate”), which has to set clear safety standards,…
UNESCO, intermediaries and freedom of expression In 2017, UNESCO published its report “Fostering Freedom Online: The Role of Internet Intermediaries”. Its aim was to shed light on how internet intermediaries both foster and restrict freedom of expression across a range of jurisdictions, circumstances, technologies, and business models. The report focused on UN’s…
Transparency of the Internet: Transparency of Internet Service Providers The public`s ability in using the Internet to become informed, to express personal opinions or to pursue a commercial purpose has shaped it into a structure that essentially fulfils a public function, if not a public service. Back in 2007, the Council of Europe…
IGF 2018 Key Messages: Digital Inclusion & Accessibility The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is a world platform which involves people from various stakeholder groups in discussions on public policy issues relating to the Internet. The IGF facilitates a common understanding of how to maximize Internet opportunities and address risks and challenges that arise…
IGF 2018 Key Messages: Media&Content The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is a world platform that involves people from various stakeholder groups in discussions on public policy issues relating to the Internet. The IGF facilitates a common understanding of how to maximize Internet opportunities and addresses risks and challenges that arise out of the technological…
EuroDIG 2019: Highlights of messages EuroDIG, the European Dialogue on Internet Governance, was established in 2008 as annual event that brings together Internet stakeholders from all over Europe (and beyond). Participants representing government, industry, civil society, academia and the technical community each year develop, in a bottom-up fashion, a dynamic agenda that explores…
Dortmund Symposium Overview of Global Regulatory Initiatives and Suggestions, Governmental Initiatives, New Regulatory Challenges Please find below the discussion materials: Schedule COMPACT Social Media overview Digital Media Regulation in V4 Global suggestions for social media regulation Recommendations & Findings 2 Recommendations & Findings 3 Minutes
Dr. Bissera Zankova, Media 21 Foundation, Bulgaria Created in 2008 by several organisations, government representatives and experts, the European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) has gained significant popularity on a European and global scale. EuroDEG aims to present, as open multi-stakeholder platform, an exchange of views about the Internet and its governance for fostering dialogue…
