Algorithms as regulatory objects

STATES, POWER, & SOCIETIES: ASA POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY SECTION NEWSLETTER, 2024

In this short piece, I argue that political sociologists have much more to contribute to the discission on algorithms and power dynamics in society. I am inspired here by sociologists who brought power issues up front when analyzing algorithms (Aneesh 2009; Burrel and Fourcade 2021; Zajko 2022). For example, sociologist Aneesh Aneesh has proposed that global work processes are becoming algocratic (2009). My goal is to contribute to a much-needed discussion and, I argue that political sociologists should not reduce the question of power and algorithms to issues of regulation and governance. I do so through presenting five theses as a provocation. Before proceeding, I would like to start with two clarifying notes. First, by suggesting that we should not limit the question of algorithms and power to discussions of governance and regulation, I do not mean at all that these issues are trivial. On the contrary, we have been ruled by algorithms in many social processes, for example, governments have used predictive analytics to identify taxpayers that are most likely to be noncompliant (Bal 2019). Second, the term regulation is multi-laden in could refer to many things. Sometimes algorithmic governance is used interchangeably with regulations by algorithmic. I am avoiding this confusion, as I am not focus on governance and regulation specifically here. Now to the five theses.

New Media & Society, 2022

Datafication and the use of algorithmic systems increasingly blur distinctions between policy fields. In the financial sector, for example, algorithms are used in credit scoring, money has become transactional data sought after by large data-driven companies, while financial technologies (FinTech) are emerging as a locus of information warfare. To grasp the context specificity of algorithmic governance and the assumptions on which its evaluation within different domains is based, we comparatively study the sociotechnical imaginaries of algorithmic governance in European Union (EU) policy on online disinformation and FinTech. We find that sociotechnical imaginaries prevalent in EU policy documents on disinformation and FinTech are highly divergent. While the first can be characterized as an algorithm-facilitated attempt to return to the presupposed status quo (absence of manipulation) without a defined future imaginary, the latter places technological innovation at the centre of realizing a globally competitive Digital Single Market.

Legal Issues in the Digital Age, 2021

At present, algorithms are becoming the heart of society by taking control over the decision-making process as societies are increasingly getting digitalised. There is a consistent theme that an unaccountable, black box technology has taken over the stage and is now making decisions for us, with us, and about us. But the contention around public participation in making decisions in science and technology needs to advance to a stage where there is a more direct conversation between the public and those developing the technologies. With the above mentioned conception of moderating emerging technologies’ development, primarily digital technology due to its overreaching effects on humans and what humans interpret it to be. Firstly, the research through a literature survey is aimed to understand the meaning and nuances of the word algorithm. Then the analysis based on case study is focused on the algorithmic questions, such as bias, privacy, design, transparency, and accountability. In a...

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, 2020

Internet-based services that build on automated algorithmic selection processes, for example search engines, computational advertising, and recommender systems, are booming and platform companies that provide such services are among the most valuable corporations worldwide. Algorithms on and beyond the Internet are increasingly influencing, aiding, or replacing human decision-making in many life domains. Their far-reaching, multifaceted economic and social impact, which results from the governance by algorithms, is widely acknowledged. However, suitable policy reactions, that is, the governance of algorithms, are the subject of controversy in academia, politics, industry, and civil society. This governance by and of algorithms is to be understood in the wider context of current technical and societal change, and in connection with other emerging trends. In particular, expanding algorithmizing of life domains is closely interrelated with and dependent on growing datafication and big data on the one hand, and rising automation and artificial intelligence in modern, digitized societies on the other. Consequently, the assessments and debates of these central developmental trends in digitized societies overlap extensively. Research on the governance by and of algorithms is highly interdisciplinary. Communication studies contributes to the formation of so-called “critical algorithms studies” with its wide set of sub-fields and approaches and by applying qualitative and quantitative methods. Its contributions focus both on the impact of algorithmic systems on traditional media, journalism, and the public sphere, and also cover effect analyses and risk assessments of algorithmic-selection applications in many domains of everyday life. The latter includes the whole range of public and private governance options to counter or reduce these risks or to safeguard ethical standards and human rights, including communication rights in a digital age.

What People Leave Behind. Marks, Traces, Footprints and their Relevance to Knowledge Society, 2022

Recent years have witnessed an increasing amount of research and interest in the complex matter of digital platforms, which has been examined from diverse and multiple academic perspectives. The phenomenon of platformisation, defined as the penetration of infrastructures, economic processes and governmental frameworks of digital platforms in different economic sectors and spheres of existence, as well as the reorganisation of cultural practices and imaginations around these platforms (Poell et al., 2019), still represents a complex and deeply investigated subject, with visible repercussions on many aspects of public and private life. A concrete example is the widespread diffusion of globally operating platform businesses—from Facebook to Google, to Amazon, etc.—that are becoming increasingly central to public and private life, transforming key economic sectors and spheres of life. Following the evolution and the increasing significance of platforms and digital intermediaries, institutions have been focusing their attention and their policymaking more and more on the issue of data and digital transition, which requires digital governance to adapt to each country’s regulatory culture and capacity, as well as understanding that these structures will continue to change over time (OECD, 2019:147). In this context, at least 73 countries worldwide have adopted a digital strategy or plan (ITU, 2020:3), while another recent trend is for countries to adopt strategies tailored to specific technologies or issues, such as automation, robotics, 5G, artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). At the EU level, the latest Proposal of Regulation (EC)2020/825 on a Single Market for Digital Services (Digital Services Act, DSA) represents the culmination of a long-standing regulatory process that, over the years, has touched on numerous issues related to digital regulation. Particular attention has been paid to the implications for democratic stability caused by the extensive power of digital platforms and intermediaries: in the document published in 2020 by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, “Technology and Democracy: understanding the influence of online technologies on political behaviour and decision-making”, causal connections are established between how platforms work and how fundamental rights online are impacted. The research highlights how automated newsfeeds and recommendation systems are designed to maximise the attention and engagement of users by satisfying their alleged preferences, which may mean giving relevance to polarising and misleading content. All these subjects—data-driven performances, data-agile economies and services, content’s ranking and recommendation systems—are linked by a common component: algorithms. Understanding algorithms, their role and functions in our digital world, the possible repercussions of their being more and more at the centre of the co-production of meaning in our society, is a key challenge of our times. The algorithmic power is transversal to many areas of life, and a single lens cannot magnify all of its complexity: a multidisciplinary approach can fruitfully help understand this all-encompassing phenomenon. On the one hand, we need to understand the meaning of the “power of algorithms”: how does it concretely work, how it is related to platform performance and what are the possible implications, especially in terms of real interference with human knowledge and perception of reality. On the other hand, we will be examining the “counteractions” set out in the European regulation: how it has been developing over time and how algorithms have become increasingly central to the debate, subsequently highlighting the importance of algorithmic transparency and accountability. We will be looking at how lawmaking—in particular the European legal framework for AI—is trying to intercept that same algorithmic power and establish new benchmarks for transparency. In conclusion, we will assess how the most recent regulation proposal addresses the matter and what are the criticalities that might occur.

Theory, Culture & Society, 28(6), 44-66, 2011

Contemporary financial markets have recently witnessed a sea change with the ‘algorithmic revolution’, as trading automats are used to ease the execution sequences and reduce market impact. Being constantly monitored, they take an active part in the shaping of markets, and sometimes generate crises when ‘they mess up’ or when they entail situations where traders cannot go backwards. Algorithms are software codes coding practices in an IT significant ‘textual’ device, designed to replicate trading patterns. To be accepted, however, they need to comply with regulatory texts, which are nothing else but codes of conduct coding accepted practices in the markets. In this article, I draw on ethnographic fieldwork in order to open these black boxes, while trying to describe their existence as devices encapsulating several points of views. I address the question of a possible misalignment between those visions, and more specifically try to draw the consequences raised by such discrepancies as regards the future of financial regulation.

2016

Algorithms, and the data they process, play an increasingly important role in decisions with significant consequences for human welfare. This trend has given rise to calls for greater accountability in algorithm design and implementation, and concern over the emergence of algorithmic discrimination. In that spirit, this paper asks whether and to what extent the European Union’s recently adopted General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) successfully addresses algorithmic discrimination. As the first piece of legislation to explicitly address algorithmic discrimination, the GDPR sets an important precedent: its success, or failure, will have repercussions that extend well beyond Europe. We argue that while the GDPR’s two primary principles for dealing with algorithmic discrimination—data sanitization and algorithm transparency—are likely inadequate, the legislation also paves the way for third party inspections of algorithms or ‘algorithm audits’. If implemented properly, the algorith...

Regulation & Governance, 2019

This panel will explore algorithmic authority as it manifests and plays out across multiple domains. Algorithmic authority refers to the power of algorithms to manage human action and influence what information is accessible to users. Algorithms increasingly have the ability to affect everyday life, work practices, and economic systems through automated decision-making and interpretation of " big data ". Cases of algorithmic authority include algorithmically curating news and social media feeds, evaluating job performance, matching dates, and hiring and firing employees. This panel will bring together researchers of quantified self, healthcare, digital labor, social media, and the sharing economy to deepen the emerging discourses on the ethics, politics, and economics of algorithmic authority in multiple domains.