M100 Sanssouci Colloquium
Media Freedom in the Age of Big Data

On Friday, September 12, the international media conference M100 Sanssouci Colloquium took place in the Orangery of Sanssouci Castle. In this prestigious building, 53 international representatives from politics, media, academia, technology, NGOs and civil society gathered to discuss the questions at heart of the 10th edition of the Colloquium: Media Freedom in the Age of Big Data. Over two sessions in a roundtable format, the participants further discussed the associated opportunities and risks, the right balance between state security and respecting privacy, and the issue of how politics can keep pace with the algorithm-driven acceleration of the present.
For the second time, the M100 Young European Journalists workshop was closely intertwined with the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium. Not only did the young journalists attend the Colloquium and the presentation of the Media Award at the end of the conference, the workshop results and group projects were also presented to the participants at the beginning at the conference and received wide acclaim. Dr Leonard Novy, Co-Director at the Institute of Media and Communications Policy, Germany, and one of the moderators of the sessions, welcomed the guests and participants at this year’s Colloquium. Then it was time for the eagerly awaited opening address of scientist and best-selling author Shoshana Zuboff, professor emerita of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.

In her speech, Prof Zuboff opened the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium by expressing her fears regarding big data. In her plea, she appealed for a future that we could truthfully call home. A future that will be severely shaped by the digital revolution that is going on today and that will continue. According to Ms Zuboff, we are only at the very beginning of a trend that she likes to compare to the impact of mass production in earlier days. She emphasised that humankind is now standing at the dawn of a digital revolution, as it stood at the dawn of the industrial revolution 100 years ago. She stressed the importance of beginning to formulate the rules or standards of this digital era.

But what is big data after all? “One person’s big data is another person’s stolen goods,” believes Ms Zuboff. The relation Ms Zuboff perceives between the accelerating big data story today and the onset of mass production in the past does not merely rely on the impact both trends have 50 years after their initiation. She coined the term data capitalism and rhetorically asked why this is accepted as a business model by technology companies and its consumers. However, the biggest reason was kept for last: technology consumers have a severe lack of understanding that all technology products stem from data surveillance. Being in the historical buildings of Potsdam, Prof Zuboff reminded the attendees how Germany already knows how it should react to the current issues caused by big data by drawing upon its past.
Prof Zuboff’s pessimistic view on the current handling of big data by both Silicon Valley and its consumers alike set the mood for the upcoming two keynote sessions, but it could not prevent the speakers from having different opinions on the topic. All participants at this year’s edition of the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium were invited to respond to the keynote sessions based on their field of expertise.
Her full speech is available at M100 Potsdam.org, as well as at FAZ.NET English / German.

At the beginning of the first session titled: “Principles of Big Data: Chances, Risks and Side-Effects”, Ben Scott, director of the European Digital Agenda Program at Stiftung Neue Verantwortung in Berlin, explained the problem behind the issue. Unsurprisingly, he called big data the buzzword of today, a mere technology tool that is capable of amplifying the desires technology consumers have. Mr Scott added quite defiantly to Ms Zuboff’s opening plea that thanks to big data and analyses drawn from it, we are finally able to discern social and economic life more accurately. The use of big data is driven by the political economy and is a reflection of what society wants. Since it is not possible to hold back the big data trend, Mr Scott advised looking into options of managing it. Good fences make good neighbours Mr Scott summarised: trust requires legitimacy and is the very foundation that should established through transparency in law and constraints over power. “Once there is proper regulation for big data, there will be no way this technology can do us any harm,” was his conclusion.  
Ali Aslan, TV Journalist and author, as well as Astrid Frohloff, TV Moderator and board member at Reporters without Borders, moderated a lively debate between media representatives and the companies that operate big data. Jens Redmer, principal of new products at Google Germany, gave Google's take on the views that emerged from the first keynote session. Google want to shift the focus to data-driven innovation instead of big data, since big data itself would mean nothing and could only be of any importance in the presence of big algorithms. The technology is needed to store, process and work on the data, but above all, there is a need for people who can analyse this data. Furthermore, he believes that the focus of the big data debate should not be on the value of data, but on the value of knowledge.
To the critics opposed to Google after Snowden’s leaks exposed Google’s susceptibility to surveillance, Redmer answered that Google has taken steps to secure its networks and has encrypted its services; Google is also one of the organisations actively suing the US government for surveillance breaches, thereby sending a clear messages to Obama administration to stop surveillance.

As a response to Google, Wolfgang Blau, director of digital strategy at The Guardian, requested to have more alternatives to Google´s services rather than taking part or not taking part in the digital world of Google. Not as a media representative but as a user, he hopes Google understand that they must make a new social contract with its users, especially in Europe. And part of that contract must be to give insights into their algorithms to trusted institutions – not so much for the sheer sake of transparency but for the sake of trust and dignity of its users.
This input by Jens Redmer and the response by Wolfgang Blau triggered a lively debate between media people and the companies that operate big data. The general tone was that companies, such as Google and Yahoo, should have limited access to personal data and must not store the information about what and when users looked up on the Internet – this should be regulated by relevant laws. Journalists also demanded that the government must not keep an eye on them. That media should become allies in protecting data and privacy was expressed many times during the first session. The final comments of the first session revolved around how to create a consensus with an often-suggested multi-stakeholder approach.

The second session was designed to draft the next steps to the point of finding solutions: From Talk to Action: Measures to Reconcile Security Concerns and Press Freedom, was opened with a keynote speech by Giovanni Buttarelli, Assistant European Data Protection Supervisor at EDPS, Belgium. In his speech, he addressed what he called the issue of the century: massive surveillance by a strategic partner, affecting individuals and public and private entities, including publishing houses and their journalists. From a legal viewpoint and according to Buttarelli, today it is clear that these surveillance programmes are incompatible with the European Union’s democratic rule of law. They compromise security and fundamental human rights and putting the freedom of information at risk as such. Buttarelli says this is a wakeup call for Europe: data is today’s currency but also a nuclear weapon. But regardless, the national security of one country should not impinge on the national security of another. “Our countries will restrict our privacy; this is foreseeable if we manage our lives through tablets and gadgets.” Information means power, Buttarelli adds, but his conclusion is that privacy, security and freedom of press are not incompatible, though there are new challenges arising from databases and big data. This means the EU must establish clear rules within its member states, not to reduce the flow of information but to enable individuals to improve their ability to manage this data better.
Dr Konstantin von Notz, German parliamentarian for the Greens and an expert in issues related to Internet governance, stated during his input that we as a society have to struggle for a maximum level of transparency in the face of complex, opaque and self-learning algorithms locked away as company secrets. In his opinion, Big Data has the potential to fundamentally shift our information societies into societies of statistical prejudice and surveillance. How far can we give into this without giving up on our rights and hopes of individual autonomy and transparency, democracy and ethics was his question. In his opinion, parliaments bear a tremendous responsibility to tame both governments and economies in order to uphold the basic principles of both the rule of law and privacy. Simultaneously, our societies as a whole will have to learn quickly about the opportunities and limits of big data.

Jean Manuel Rozan
and Eric Léandri, co-founders of the French search engine Qwant, responded to the lack of transparency addressed by von Notz by explaining Qwant’s path to regaining trust: respect of privacy, no usage as a surveillance asset, no surveillance capitalism but in favour of information capitalism, anonymous searches and operation without cookies. He argues that the responsibility of journalism is to protect the privacy of sources, so the political system needs to make laws to protect this.

Dr Leonard Novy moderated the second session and gave the attendees some food for thought, such as what would it take for the EU to come up with the synthetic declaration envisioned by Shoshana Zuboff? Concerning media and journalism, both as a business and a social pillar for democracy, how should they tackle privacy and data protection?
More questions and concerns were added to the debate. As concerns supporting the growing market, yet at the same time creating a more secure Internet, the question arose: do we have to choose between these two or can we keep both? How do we find a privacy solution in a business-driven world?
In answer to those questions, one of the speakers responded: “Old laws should be adapted to our digital reality.” Reform of security and practices is needed in order to safeguard our privacy in the future.
From there on, the speakers touched on the issue of how data regulation and restrictions can affect journalists. Increased privacy standards change nothing for espionage but everything for journalists. Journalism’s effectiveness is severely limited by sources not wanting to talk anymore because of the lack of privacy in digital communication. Moreover, journalists have to protect themselves against spy attacks. The responsibility of the government should not only be to protect them but to create an international convention on privacy and data protection, following the example of the Geneva Convention.
Though no one believed this would actually be happening in the near future, a wide consensus was reached that data protection can only to be tackled on an international level. The FAZ² recalls that, as is commonly known, the governments’ passion for freedom ends where national security is concerned.

The overall consensus from the debate was that international law should apply in cyber space: this also implies that every individual enjoys the same universal human rights online as it enjoys offline, including the right to privacy, freedom of expression and access to information. An extended multi-stakeholder process, engaging member states, governments and civil societies, was suggested. The balance between economic stakeholders in the USA and political ones in Europe is in dissymmetry. Transatlantic consensus is needed to bridge the gaps, in which journalists, as the watchdogs in a democratic society, play an important role: they shape public opinion as disseminators of information. The interests of lobbyists and massive surveillance have monopolised the debate about data protection, thereby marginalising the freedom of press. Thanks to data protection, journalists may benefit from better quality of information. Dr Leonard Novy’s concluding words, “We are still confused, but on a much higher level,” summarised the thought-provoking debate with a touch of humour.  

 

M100 MEDIA AWARD

The long awaited highlight after the conference was the M100 Media Award ceremony in the Orangery Palace. This 10th anniversary of the M100 Media Award placed a particular emphasis on the link between the Ukraine and the EU. Thus, Vitali Klitschko was this year’s recipient in recognition of his peaceful engagement in the democratic transition of his country Ukraine. The collective YanukovychLeaks received a special award for their fight against corruption. Every year, the M100 Media Award honours an individual who, through his or her work, has left their mark on Europe and on the world. The award reflects their service to the safeguarding of the freedom of expression and the deepening of democracy as well as their outstanding achievements in promoting European understanding and communication. With this year’s award winners putting a focus on democracy in Ukraine and the conference’s topic of big data, this 10th edition of the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium has once again put its finger on the pulse of the times as well as sent a political signal.
Martin Schulz, President of the EU Parliament, in keeping with the topic of the Big Data Colloquium and the selection of the Ukrainian prize winners, emphasised the importance of freedom and democracy in Europe in his keynote address. You can read his entire speech here as well in the German daily Tagesspiegel.  

Prior to his speech, Lord Mayor of Potsdam Jann Jakobs welcomed the award winners, keynote speakers and guests at the M100 Media Award and looked back on 10 years of the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium and its founders, including linking Potsdam to the topic of this year’s conference. His full speech is available here.

Sebastian Kurz, Foreign Minister of Austria, gave the laudatory speech for the former professional boxer and now mayor of Kiev Vitali Klitschko. He emphasised the sober-mindedness and prudence of Klitschko in the Maidan protests and honoured him in his peacekeeping path.

Vitali Klitschko’s emotional acceptance speech stressed the difficult situation the Ukraine is in and pointed out that this award is being given to all the people who fought for freedom in his home country.

The Ukrainian project YanukovychLeaks has been awarded with a “special prize”. The team of investigative journalists exposed the system of corruption in place during Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency. Co-founders Natalia Sedletska and Kateryna Kapliuk accepted the price in Potsdam as representatives of YanukovychLeaks and recalled the difficult situation in Ukraine once more.

In his laudatory Executive Director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy, Christopher Walker, honoured the representatives for their fight for transparency and against the corrupt system of former president Yanukovych “by taking action quickly, skilfully and with great determination.” You can read his speech at M100Potsdam.org and a commentary at NED.org.

The glamorous event concluded with a gala dinner in the New Chambers in Sanssouci Park. This gala dinner with 150 guests was also given in honour of the co-founder and co-chairman of the M100 Advisory Board, Lord Weidenfeld, whose 95th birthday fell on the following day.

 


 

1 http://www.day.kiev.ua/en/article/topic-day/ukrainian-soiree-sanssouci

² Available only in German http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/sanssouci-media-colloquium-durch-die-datenwueste-13151362.html

* Ekaterina Kuznetosva, David Trvdon, Ani Hovhannisyan, Lucie Dupin, Aline Flor, Maaike Goslinga, Una Maria Kelly, Anna Kakalashivili, Jim van Nunen, Petr Obrovský, Miroslav Čakširan and Isabel Gahren

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