Catalina Goanta on Big Tech War Activism during the war in Ukraine

"The war in Ukraine is live. It’s not only live on CNN or Al Jazeera but it’s live on different social media platforms, for better and worse", write Sofia Ranchordas, Giovanni De Gregorio and Catalina Goanta on Verfassungsblog. "In this war context, even Big Tech platforms are not neutral. Rather, along with their users, they are giving rise to a new wave of tech war activism, siding with Ukraine." Catalina Goanta and her colleagues explore the platformization of war and emerging questions.

Catalina Goanta is an Associate Professor at Utrecht University. Her multidisciplinary research focuses on platform governance, content monetization and decentralization, and brings together methods from law and computer science. The war in Ukraine is also fought online and communication is heavily intermediated by private global powers like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, who have extensive influence but limited accountability.  "Existing legal frameworks do not offer adequate regulatory answers and the adoption of strict measures against social media platforms such as bans can produce more harm than good", Dr. Goanta writes on Verfassungsblog.de, together with a colleague from the University of Groningen and one from Bocconi University.

Being responsible with tech activism: check your priorities

In their conclusion, the researchers stress the importance of content moderation and the protection of public values. "Governments and the international community should cooperate with tech platforms and urge them for the time being to be responsible with tech activism. This can entail deprioritization of content regarding prisoners of war, captured military equipment, images of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers, misguided fundraising actions, and potentially offensive or sensitive content. A truly responsible governance framework for tech activism in the context of war should require social media platforms to be more neutral than they currently are."

"As a result, they could prioritize, for example, more high quality journalistic content supported by evidence rather than ill-funded opinions of influencers and viral videos of prisoners of war. Times of crisis showcase in an unprecedent way how the opacity of platform governance is a regulatory issue that requires swift solutions."

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