PublicSpaces / Conference

Opening: What's at stake?

The time is NOW! It's becoming more and more urgent to create our own public spaces. And the way forward is within our grasp.

May 17 10:00 - 10:15 @
Grote Zaal

Language: English.

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The time is NOW! It's becoming more and more urgent to create our own public spaces. And the way forward is within our grasp.

Big tech corporations are keeping the public sphere in a gridlock. Our access to reliable information, and our ability to spread necessary and urgent information, is becoming increasingly dependent on how it benefits the economic interests of profit-driven tech corporations. The urgency for a public internet for the people is growing in the midst of the multiple crises that we are facing. Climate, war and global health issues are not being given the priority they need within the algorithms of the apps we use for our information intake.

Public organizations are struggling to provide nuanced, well-researched views and viable alternatives, and failing to thrive in an algorithm that prefers outrage and emotion. Content for the common good is pushed away, side-lined, visible only if you know where to find it and who to follow. We deserve a better online space that serves our health, freedom and livelihood, and is built with the logic of our shared public values. And we need to create it ourselves.

Speakers