6th GIG-ARTS Conference: Global Internet Governance and International Human Rights - Whose Rights, Whose Interpretations?

6th GIG-ARTS Conference: Global Internet Governance and International Human Rights - Whose Rights, Whose Interpretations?

Wed, 13 Apr 2022 - Thu, 14 Apr 2022

Nicosia, Cyprus

More information


Contact: events@gig-arts.eu

Calls for states, but also companies to ensure the compliance of digital tools and products with international human rights standards are ever-present. While this abstract goal has become somewhat of a globalist consensus, the legal,  political, and institutional conditions needed to get there are far from clear: how can international human rights law initiate improvements in different areas, given its indeterminate, often even disputed nature? What are the risks of the reference to international human rights law,  in terms of stabilizing preexisting disparities or power concentrations through illusive improvements? Where does the reference to human rights only provide a new, improved language for a non-improved status quo? Could private internet companies provide a protection of human rights online comparable to that of judicial institutions? Ultimately, whose human rights, and whose interpretations are determining the present and future of global internet governance? This event invites scholars and actors in the practice and policy world to re-examine and revisit the state and role of human rights in the digital world,  as this is shaped by technological and political-economic changes of ‘platform station’,  privatization of public spaces,  erosion and abuse of certain rights, the pressure imposed on a  decade of successive crises from financial, environmental to health, and the re-emergence of authoritarian politics and modes of governance. 
 
In  recent  years,  the  everyday life of humanity has been affected dramatically by the experience of a global pandemic, where public health political responses have been met with varying degrees of acceptance. The severity  and  nature of this  impact differs greatly among  regions and within societies, across  genders and  socioeconomic  discrepancies,  bringing  back  to  the  fore  the persistence  and  deeply engrained footprint of social inequalities. Within this context of emergency, crisis and exacerbation of

inequities, the digital world occupied a center stage in the social, cultural and professional spheres. The heightened physical and mental health crisis across the globe is  intertwined with a long and arduous struggle in governing digital platforms for the benefit of humanity vis-a-vis the profit driven dominant model. The latter has impacted not only on the ways in which users on platforms  are adjusted to the needs of the platform, systematically and technologically through the use of AI, rather than the opposite, but have also impacted on understandings and conceptualizations  of fundamental freedoms and rights, as they are shaping social conceptualizations of what privacy means, the extent of free speech and hate speech, the extent of misinformation and the exercise of informational rights.   
 
After having  addressed  “Global  Internet  Governance  as  a  Diplomacy  Issue”  at  its  first  edition  in 2017,  “Overcoming  Inequalities  in  Internet  Governance”  in  2018,  “Europe  as  a  Global Player in Internet Governance” in 2019, and “Online Information Governance” in 2020, The European Multidisciplinary  Conference  on  Global  Internet  Governance  Actors,  Regulations,  Transactions and Strategies  turns  its  attention  this  year  to  the  governance  of  human  rights  in  the  digital  world, continuing the conversation on  global internet  governance from attention to institutions and 
structural  factors  to  the  role  of  content  and  misinformation  as  an  object  of  governance,  and  internet actors as forces of change. 
 
In addition to general  internet  governance issues and topics, submissions are particularly welcome on the following possible areas of investigation: 

  • How human rights translate in a digital world: losses, gains and shifting of priorities; 
  • Human rights duties and responsibilities of respective internet governance stakeholders; 
  • From high-level panels on digital cooperation to digital conventions:  towards a  new digital world order? 
  • The  role  of  European  and  global  institutions  in  shaping  the  conditions  of  human  rights  and democracy online; 
  • Global platforms, conflicts of jurisdictions and  extraterritorial legislation; 
  • Weaponization of platforms to interfere in political processes and harass individuals and groups; 
  • Responsibility  and liability  of platforms and  other  intermediaries  in content regulation; 
  • Governance  from  below:  practices  and  principles  by  civil  society  aiming  to  shape  the  conditions  of technology;     
  • Restrictive regulation and the securitization of content; 
  • Structural role of  individual  targeting, behavioral advertising and other economic models of online platforms on the reshaping of  fundamental freedoms and democracy; 
  • Privacy, misinformation, democracy: challenges to internet governance; 
  • From nudging to manipulation: consequences on autonomy and human dignity;   
  • Freedom of expression, freedom of the press and democracy; 
  • Youth and other vulnerable groups: access to information, news and misinformation in the online world.

Submission information and publication Opportunities Authors are invited to submit their extended abstracts (no longer than 500 words), describing their research question(s), theoretical framework, approach and methodology, expected findings or empirical outcome. Submitted abstracts will be evaluated through a peer-review process. 

Abstracts and authors’ information should be submitted through the Easychair conference management 
system at: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=gigarts2022 

Authors of selected submissions will have the opportunity to submit their full manuscripts for publication. 

Conference Grant for Students

The  GIG-ARTS  conference and the Leibniz Institute for  Media  Research  |  Hans-Bredow-Institut are proud to encourage the participation of emerging researchers through the  HBI/GIG-ARTS Emerging Scholars Network project set up in 2022. Up to  10  exceptional submissions from emerging researchers will be selected to receive a grant of  500  EUR  each,  to help cover their conference participation costs. Masters or PhD students who have not yet been awarded a PhD by the time of the conference are eligible.

In addition to presenting their work at  GIG-ARTS  2022,  the grantees will share their research via a short blog post on the HBI’s Media Research Blog, Podcast, or another science transfer format and will join a set of network building sessions leading up to the conference. 

To be considered for the grant programme, Masters or  PhD students must,  in addition to the abstract submission process set out above, notify the Co-Chairs of their application for the conference grant via an email to: events@gig-arts.eu; no additional documents are required.  
 
Key dates

  • Deadline for abstract submissions: 1st February 2022 
  • Notification to authors: 1st March 2022 
  • Authors registration (at least one author must register for a selected presentation to appear on the programme): From 1st to 14 March 2022 
  • Programme publication: 21 March 2022 
  • Online registration: From 21 to 31 March 2022
  • Conference dates: 13 & 14 April 2022

Conference Registration and Fees Registration fees are  100€  for regular participants and  50€  for students showing proof of status. The conference fees include a participant kit as well as coffee breaks and meals. 
 
GIG-ARTS 2022 Communication Details