Social media dependency is a central mechanism through which digital vulnerability takes shape, making it critical to understand for research, design, and policy. This study distinguishes between functional dependency (needs-based reliance) and psychological dependency (compulsive engagement) and investigates how these dimensions intersect. We surveyed 873 adult users across Europe, measuring both dependency forms alongside demographics, well-being, motivations, platform choice, and exposure to manipulative design features. Latent profile analysis and multinomial logistic regression revealed five distinct dependency profiles: functional use, low-dependency pragmatic use, high-dependency social use, moderate-dependency hedonic use, and very high-dependency multi-motivated use. These findings show dependency is not uniform but layered and dynamic, shifting with users' circumstances and socio-technical contexts. By situating dependency within both individual and design-related factors, the study advances theoretical debates on digital vulnerability and offers a profiles-based lens that helps inform the design of more autonomy-supportive social media platforms.

This paper analyzes the potential influence of digital mapping tools (with Google Maps as the primary example) on mode choice behavior. For the purpose of this study, we use survey data gathered in Vienna (Austria) during 2022. Almost 80% of respondents state that they regularly use Google Maps, and a large majority evaluate Google Maps positively concerning ease of use, trust, or general usefulness. Our analyses reveal that, on average, respondents perceive real-life travel times as somewhat longer than the corresponding Google-Maps-based travel times (by 2%–11%). However, a large degree of heterogeneity is present, which seems to be at least partially driven by respondents’ speed choices. Based on a stated preference experiment, in which respondents were asked to choose between transport modes, assuming that the travel times stated in the experiment either originate from Google Maps (GoogleMaps treatment) or correspond to accurately measured average travel times (Baseline treatment), we can show that the perceived differences between real-life travel times and Google-Maps-based travel times are only considered to a limited extent in the mode choices. More specifically, such deviations are mainly acted upon when individuals expect to be faster than the Google Maps estimate.

Platforms have a problem with harmful or illegal content online. Flagging, which is an empowering tool for users to report violating content. A new European Union law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), seeks to harmonize the regulation of the flagging process. This paper examines how these flagging mechanisms support user action through semi-structured interviews (N=12) with regulatory authorities and professional reporting experts, using a walkthrough approach (with case studies based on flagging systems on Facebook and TikTok). We found tensions between the empowerment of users with additional reporting options and how it burdens users within service interfaces and processes; users need to understand the law, participate in a legal process, and differentiate between legal options and terms of service. Design choices, like the length of necessary reporting steps, also impacted expectations on the transparency of the reporting process. We close with design insights on support for users and stakeholders in the reporting process.

More people voted in 2024 than any other year in human history, while often relying on the internet for political information. This combination resulted in critical challenges for democracy. To address these concerns, we designed an exhibition that applied interactive experiences to help visitors understand the impact of digitization on democracy. This late-breaking work addresses the research questions: 1) What do participants, exposed to playful interventions, think about these topics? and 2) How do people estimate their skills and knowledge about countering misinformation? We collected data in 5 countries through showcases held within weeks of relevant 2024 elections. During visits, participants completed a survey detailing their experiences and emotional responses. Participants expressed high levels of self-confidence regarding the detection of misinformation and spotting AI-generated content. This paper contributes to addressing digital literacy needs by fostering engaging interactions with AI and politically relevant issues surrounding campaigning and misinformation.

This chapter explores the concept of digital cultural sovereignty in European Cultural Heritage Institutions (CHIs), emphasising the intersection of cultural and digital sovereignty in their digitisation practices. The study aims to define digital cultural sovereignty - control and agency over cultural heritage, expressions, and identity in digital form - and its significance for creating inclusive digital transformation strategies. By mapping the digital practices of European CHIs and using a decolonial lens, the research identifies gaps in current methodologies and offers insights into the integration of cultural and digital sovereignty. The findings highlight examples of cross-cultural collaborations, outlining the challenges and opportunities for CHIs to promote digital cultural sovereignty. This research contributes to the field by providing strategies for CHIs to act as responsible custodians of culture, fostering a resilient socio-technical ecosystem that empowers communities locally and globally.

Historically global trade has not had a strong value-based focus. Despite these challenges, concepts related to human rights have slowly been seeping into international trade. This chapter will provide an overview of the increasing role of human rights and digital technology in export control regimes over the past two decades and how this has led to the expansion of export controls of surveillance technologies. It will take a particularly close look at the EU debate on export controls, human rights and digital technologies, before looking at China and India. We argue that export controls become a powerful way of inserting human rights into international trade. In contrast to claims that Internet regulation is fundamentally impossible, export controls provide a key example of how human rights norms can be embedded in technical Internet infrastructure by restricting the flow of surveillance technologies which are likely to have a negative human rights impact.

Digital surveillance technologies using artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as computer vision and facial recognition are becoming cheaper and easier to integrate into governance practices worldwide. Morocco serves as an example of how such technologies are becoming key tools of governance in authoritarian contexts. Based on qualitative fieldwork including semi-structured interviews, observation, and extensive desk reviews, this chapter focusses on the role played by AI-enhanced technology in urban surveillance and the control of migration between the Moroccan-Spanish borders. Two cross-cutting issues emerge: first, while international donors provide funding for urban and border surveillance projects, their role in enforcing transparency mechanisms in their implementation remains limited; second, Morocco's existing legal framework hinders any kind of public oversight. Video surveillance is treated as the sole prerogative of the security apparatus, and so far public actors have avoided to engage directly with the topic. The lack of institutional oversight and public debate on the matter raise serious concerns on the extent to which the deployment of such technologies affects citizens' rights. AI-enhanced surveillance is thus an intrinsically transnational challenge in which private interests of economic gain and public interests of national security collide with citizens' human rights across the Global North/Global South divide.

Content moderation is a vital condition that online platforms must facilitate, according to the law, to create suitable online environments for their users. By the law, we mean national or European laws that require the removal of content by online platforms, such as EU Regulation 2021/784, which addresses the dissemination of terrorist content online. Content moderation required by these national or European laws, summarised here as ‘the law’, is different from the moderation of pieces of content that is not directly required by law but instead is conducted voluntarily by the platforms. New regulatory requests create an additional layer of complexity of legal grounds for the moderation of content and are relevant to platforms’ daily decisions. The decisions made are either grounded in reasons stemming from different sources of law, such as international or national provisions, or can be based on contractual grounds, such as the platform's Terms of Service and Community Standards. However, how to empirically measure these essential aspects of content moderation remains unclear. Therefore, we ask the following research question: How do online platforms interpret the law when they moderate online content? To understand this complex interplay and empirically test the quality of a platform's content moderation claims, this article develops a methodology that facilitates empirical evidence of the individual decisions taken per piece of content while highlighting the subjective element of content classification by human moderators. We then apply this methodology to a single empirical case, an anonymous medium-sized German platform that provided us access to their content moderation decisions. With more knowledge of how platforms interpret the law, we can better understand the complex nature of content moderation, its regulation and compliance practices, and to what degree legal moderation might differ from moderation due to contractual reasons in dimensions such as the need for context, information, and time. Our results show considerable divergence between the platform's interpretation of the law and ours. We believe that a significant number of platform legal interpretations are incorrect due to divergent interpretations of the law and that platforms are removing legal content that they falsely believe to be illegal (‘overblocking’) while simultaneously not moderating illegal content (‘underblocking’). In conclusion, we provide recommendations for content moderation system design that takes (legal) human content moderation into account and creates new methodological ways to test its quality and effect on speech in online platforms.

The AI Act represents a significant legislative effort by the European Union to govern the use of AI systems according to different risk-related classes, linking varying degrees of compliance obligations to the system's classification. However, it is often critiqued due to the lack of general public comprehension and effectiveness regarding the classification of AI systems to the corresponding risk classes. To mitigate those shortcomings, we propose a Decision-Tree-based framework aimed at increasing robustness, legal compliance and classification clarity with the Regulation. Quantitative evaluation shows that our framework is especially useful to individuals without a legal background, allowing them to improve considerably the accuracy and significantly reduce the time of case classification.