The transparency of algorithms: objectives and implications of the European digital space reform

Abstract

The digital transition is one of the main tasks of the European Commission in its current five-year establishment, 2019-2024. With the wider objectives of strengthening the social dimension of Europe and shifting to a data-agile economy, several European legislative proposals aimed at regulating the vast digital subject were submitted in the last years by the Union, in the areas of data privacy, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and digital platforms. The latest attempt in this direction – the European Commission proposal for a reform of the European Digital Space of December 2020, articulated in the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act – provides a set of new rules for all digital services and platforms. Particular attention is paid to the role of algorithms, the implications for the quality of information and countries’ democratic stability and the need for greater transparency of those mechanisms of ranking and selection underlying algorithmic performance. This multidisciplinary paper precisely focuses on the understanding of the algorithmic power, its effectiveness and the consequences it brings on our daily lives. It will examine the EU legal framework and guidelines in the digital sector and, through a review of the sociological and media studies’ literature, it will draw valuable interpretative and conceptual tools on the theme of the power of the algorithm and its declinations. Through the definition both of the theoretical framework, built with the analysis of media studies’ contributions on the theme of algorithm and the European legal framework in the digital field, we will examine the connections between algorithmic power, construction of meaning and disinformation, with the aim of understanding the extent of the change that the transparent algorithm would imply.