“Algorithmic intermediaries exercise intermediary power over participants in the digital public sphere—they shape what is possible and impossible, encouraged and frustrated; they shape power relations between us; and, over time, they are reshaping basic social structures, like political communications and civic engagement.” – Seth Lazar

In this talk, Prof Seth Lazar will discuss a recent paper which highlights the responsibility of algorithmic intermediaries in governing the public sphere through their architecture, amplification algorithms, and moderation practices. This event will investigate why such responsibilities must include more than just enumerating and responding to pathologies such as misinformation, radicalisation, and abuse, and considers a new positive ideal to aim at.

Political philosophy should offer such an ideal, but it tells us only when not to interfere in free speech, not how to shape public communication and distribute attention. During this event, Prof Lazar will spotlight a new theory of communicative justice: an account of the communicative interests that those who govern the digital public sphere should promote, and the democratic egalitarian norms by which their doing so should be constrained. 

This event will question how a new ideal might guide us in shaping public communication and distributing attention, in balancing the governing responsibilities of private and public actors, and in striving for procedural legitimacy in governance of the digital public sphere.