How should search engines be regulated? What are the implications of the EU Digital Services Act? If you are interested in technology policy, mark your calendar for an upcoming pre-conference virtual event: “Harms and Standards in Content Platform Governance” (October 13, 2022 at 5:00 a.m. PST, 8:00 a.m EST, 2:00 p.m. CEST). As part of the upcoming European Communication Research and Education conference, the Communication Law and Policy section has invited Kaylea Champion to present work she did with Benjamin Mako Hill and University of Washington students Jacinta Harshe, Isabella Brown, and Lucy Bao.
We examine the information landscape as manifested in search results during the Covid-19 pandemic using data we collected as part of the Covid-19 Digital Observatory Project. Our results provide evidence for the powerful ways that search engines shape our information environment–in terms of what information gets seen, the sources of that information, the market sectors that those sources operate within, and the partisan bias of those results.
This free event is oriented to connecting technology researchers and policymakers, and will include presentations of research from legal, communication, and critical perspectives.