Welcome back at the conference, the public spaces conference. We had a very interesting start with some provoking ideas how to reclaim the Internet and the public values and the public spaces on the Internet. There are a lot of things happening already all around Europe. People that are already trying to reclaim the Internet or building new places for people to meet. And we will go to listen to some of them. We invited five initiatives, community announcements we call it now, and they will each have five minutes to present their initiative. So I will stay close to be sure that it's only five minutes. I hope I'm not too annoying by saying you have one minute left. But we have half an hour for this and then after that we have another discussion and panel. So, but now we start with five presentations of each five minutes and I want to invite Kemal Gurguru from the Beyond Platforms Initiative. Are you there Kemal? from the beyond platforms initiative are you there come on hi yes I'm there I see you nice to see you too so I have five minutes I proposed I start sharing my little presentation some slides that I have to talk to you about what the Beyond Platforms initiatives is about. Do you see my screen in full screen? Yes. Yes, super. So the Beyond Platforms initiatives is, we are based in Germany and we have mainly a media background within us. And the next couple of two, three minutes, I will tell you a little bit about what our background is and what kind of goals we try to achieve. So as we already heard today at the keynotes, there is an issue with the digital space and with the fact that the public also needs in the digital spaces open independent rooms where content can be consumed and information can be offered. rooms where content can be consumed and information can be offered and um um and so how do we how do we uh what do we do in this domain um we think it's about um we think we have to rethink the rules uh we think that we need to seek uh to renegotiate the rules for media consumption on the internet. We also believe that's not only about the rules, but it's also about new concepts. So what do I mean if I talk about new concepts? We within the Beyond Platforms initiatives, we are convinced that it's now the moment where we have to work on new concepts, where we have to come up with what we call construction plans based on standards, interoperability and decentralization. And how do you get there? Where do you start? What do you need to do? We're convinced that the current situation which is dominated by small or large platforms is not good as it is and these platforms they follow principles and we have to decompose these principles into different components and what do I mean when I talk, when I say components? I think there is different layers of how platforms are thought and are orchestrated. And in our perception of how things are, the different components are about the values, on the one hand, are about the infrastructure that is offered, are about the contents and the businesses which are behind these contents. It's also about user experience and about connecting different stakeholders from a distribution point of view. So at the end of the day, it's about concepts and construction plans that can help create new digital ecosystems. And this has to be done together. So I'm very, very glad to be today here and connect and network with you all. So it has to be together. It has to be transparent. It has to have honest goals. And we have to also rethink and re-control ourselves if we achieve our goals. So how are we organized, the Beyond Platforms initiative? We first met at the end of 2019 in Berlin, Germany. We are around 40 persons within. first met at the end of 2019 in Berlin, Germany. We are around 40 persons within, we're not using matrix but still slack. We have different work groups within what we do, work through based on what I just showed you about values, distribution, technology, infrastructure, et cetera. We have domain experts. We have, we are an association and foundation, so the legal process just started. And at the beginning of next month, that's great, the city of Hamburg founded for 18 months a project management position where we have a person that will help us to conduct our work and to orchestrate and to trigger us. person that will help us to conduct our work and to orchestrate and to trigger us. It is Rome, as you all know, wasn't built in one day. So what we think what we should do is go in a horizon of 10 years, do our concepts, do construction plans, do solutions and and hopefully do it not only on a German, but obviously on a European level and connect with you all guys and and share experiences and find synergies and do stuff together so if you want to contact us that's our contact information um thank you for having me well that's well done within the five minutes thank you so much you're welcome it's clearly that you're having this image of the stack i think this tech stackism is a sort of a new movement to understand the technologies as a layers on top of each other thank you so much i don't have any time for questions sorry no worries no worries no worries what's going on people start to discuss with you in the in the chat both all right the chat uh from uh from the from the stream, but we also have the matrix chat and maybe you can join there and the people can join maybe your initiative. Thank you so much. Thank you. We move on to the project from the BBC and Sander van der Waal, my colleague at WAG, mapping the ethical internet and a new home for working together. Ian and Sander, take it away. IAN LANGDONINGER OK, just sharing my screen. I should have got the right one. That is the right one. OK. So you can hopefully see this. So, yeah, we're basically, me and Sander are looking to map the ethical internet because we feel that there's a lot going on out there. And we're doing some of the things that are similar to each other. And if we can map it and also find a home to work together, then we can start to collaborate closer and move along a bit quicker. So this whole conference is all about, you know, this how to achieve public spaces on the internet. And, you know, thank you very much for coming. And we want to start to take sort of things out of the, some of the presentations and some of the ideas and actually move on this so one of the first things we did is we asked a question um in the tickets uh you know would you like to you would you be happy for us to use information um for public good um as such that you know this is the complete thing yes or no and you probably were wondering what does that actually mean so what we've one of the things we did is we took that and we've started to map this notion of the ethical internet and so we've started to put this into a visualizer we've got the all the data and we're able to start to track which countries you're from, what kind of things are interesting to you, stuff like that. Sander, did you want to add anything? I can't see you, so. I think that's all good. I think what we've seen is that people obviously register their own initiatives, and now we're also looking at connecting them. So it's figuring out who knows whom and who are already collaborating with each yes so here's an here's another view of it so um we'll be able to share this and this will be part of a session uh tomorrow um at the um the all-day conference so please come along if you can another thing that we've been doing is, as you already probably noticed, is that we started to move to a new home for working together because that's one of the things that seems to be problematic. Each different provider, each different organization, each different initiative has their own home. And so one of the things we want to do is we want to bring that a lot closer together but rather than put everyone on the exact same system we're looking to use matrix because it has this functionality where you can bridge networks so bridging those networks means that we're a lot closer together and we can talk to each other without having to give up what we're already using because there may be a reason why one uh initiative is using uh one thing over another and so we just want to be able to bridge them and so we can work closer together is anything else you want to add sender i think right you want to tear down the walled gardens and know more about what everyone is working on so part of this is sort of starting new collaborations and new conversations on matrix. It's nice to already see a lot of sort of buzz on the two matrix channels right now. And we really see this as a start of something and want to move it beyond the conference, which is why we chose the matrix. And because it is decentralized and federated, it allows for sort of connection of networks. People are already part of lots of other networks and we're gonna connect them rather than to try to build our own walled learning. Yes. Yeah, I said, learn more and join us. You know, this is, we are still trying new things. So please join our session tomorrow at these times and we can talk more in more depth about this stuff I think that's it thank you very much thank you so much and you have opportunity to join you tomorrow which is good so you all be there together and hopefully I think one of them the, in the chat already, somebody pointed out, well, there's so many things going on. It's not just the matrix, the matrix, right? It's not just matrix. But I think why we choose matrix is because it is a connector, it is, it connects and bridges. So, but again, some of that still has to be developed. So there is already a lot there. There are already bridges to many of the environments that people already use. But I think it's also an opportunity for us to, this is still something, I guess, for people that have some background and already are into, are not too hesitant to use another app or to participate in something. So I think we also have the, we are obliged to also make it more accessible for people. So this is also a challenge for us to make this new platform also accessible for people and user-friendly. A little bit thinking about how this can be a welcome space, not just a nerdy space, which still is a little bit a nerdy space. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much. And I want to ask Alexander Barassitz to join us. Alexander is founding president of the Cultural Broadcasting Archive. He's also involved, has been involved in Creative Commerce Austria. And he will talk about, for me, it's very funny. The European cultural background has been a project for me 20 years ago. So I'm really, really curious what the European cultural background is today. So you will tell us about that. Do you have slides? Because then you have to... I don't have slides. No slides. Wow. Slide list. Very good. Go ahead. And please, Frans will join me. He will do the second part of the presentation. I'm going to just introduce myself. I'm, as told from the Cultural Broadcasting Archive, this is a non-commercial pod and video casting platform. It has around 120,000 pod and video casts in 50 different languages uh and is based in austria and actually i wanted to refer to the european cultural background uh 1.0 which we aren't really related to although i followed this in the late 90s and we really admired the achievements of this uh and uh we just bought this uh fitting name but uh actually it's just a working title to be honest, but it's a really a great name. And always when I put ECB into the EU, it's a very funny destination and where it gets. Yeah, the idea is to build a network of federated civil society platforms. So we are reaching out to platforms that are actually running like us. And the first link we're gonna wanna build is to the freiradios.net. It's a German platform and Wikidata. This is our current project, but we are also reaching out to a platform in Barcelona and in the students platform in France, colleagues in Ireland, Croatia, hopefully Poland and Hungary. Yeah, this is the idea to interlink them. And I don't know, I will give the microphone to Franz. He will line out the technical background of it. Yeah, hi. Thanks for having us. I'm Franz, software developer from Freiburg. So what we want to do is to not create a huge new thing, but instead build small tools that allow to connect existing platforms. So we have this situation that there's so many different platforms, all have specific audiences and reaches and what we want to try to do is to empower these platforms by providing collaboration and data exchange between them so you could imagine like the cba would be one mode one node partners in other countries would be other nodes and they would exchange metadata of the audio and video content that's hosted there and thus making it really straightforward and easy that's at least the idea in the end to have a shared repository of independent media and content across european platforms providing intelligent search across these platforms and search also usually includes recommendations so we can empower communities by providing a bigger reach to related communities in other parts of Europe, for example. It would mostly be a technical project to develop this tool set, but the idea would be to, from the, from the outset work with existing platforms to integrate content into this new network. I just shared in the chat, a link to our initial draft. There's a few more details in it. We have some initial thoughts about moderation, enabling trust models in the digital sphere, and also some technical details that we are thinking about. And we'd like to do a follow-up meeting, because we have so little time here today in the next week. So please shoot an email if that project sounds interesting to you. We'd really like to get in content and talk about it. The general idea is to now find a group of partners who would be interested in that and then try to acquire the necessary funding for the technical backbone of such an exchange network, resilient network for media and metadata across these platforms. I think our time is out already. So I'll leave it at that and hope to get in touch. Have the right context info in the chat and maybe also at the chat that's matrix was, this chat will disappear or most of it. Of course the whole, we will bring the chat that's matrix cross this chat will disappear uh or most of it with the of course the whole uh we will um uh we we we will bring this on on again sorry i'm getting confused uh but if you want to have a chat please do it also in the matrix uh environment then people can find you uh later on i'm just saying that we will uh put this again streaming and people can follow it later on and can join this later on. Thank you so much for this. And I think it can be a very elaborate way to collaborate between organizations and initiatives. Thank you so much. Now we're going to listen to Danny O'Brien. He works at the Alfred Fonte Foundation, a big inspiration for many of us. And he is also working on the public interest for public interest internet. So then he will give a short update on what the EFF is actually doing, which is relevant to Europe. Hi, everyone. I hope you can hear me. Can you hear me? Very good. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. So I'm from the electronic frontier foundation I think a lot of people view us as an American organization and I am indeed in San Francisco which I believe Dante described as the seventh circle of Silicon Valley but in fact we're we're an international we're a global organization a good 10% of our membership comes from outside actually comes from Europe so we have quite a few members there and they're generally you know technologists or people who have an interest in making technology something which works for everyone in an equitable, just, and innovative way. But enough of that. 25 years ago, which, if you want to be really cruel to me, is a quarter century, I was sitting in a basement with a few other people building something that was an attempt to fix a bug that we saw in the public infrastructure, which is that UK MPs couldn't receive email. Or if they did, they didn't want to read it. So we built a thing called Fax Your MP, which sent emails to their fax machines, which they had to read because the prime minister would communicate to them entirely by fax. And therefore, we built from scratch an infrastructure to let citizens talk to their representatives in the UK. What's interesting about that is even though that's sort of trapped in time, I don't think anyone even knows what faxes are anymore. I don't think anyone even knows what faxes are anymore. The seeds of that became the government digital service in the UK. Tom Loosemore and Mike Bracken were two of the people hacking away at Faxbridge Gateways and they helped seed that. And also, for those of you who know about it, MySociety, which is one of the great kind of civic institutions in providing civic technology. And the reason why I mentioned this, apart from, you know, it being the only thing I've done in the last 25 years, is that it really shows that often the seeds of the future of the public space and the public internet, what we at EFF internally call the public interest internet, are already here, right? They're already extant. And we're interested in finding out where those seeds are, not picking winners, but letting them grow, finding out how to change the balance of incentives that mean that the public interest internet has a chance against what we see as dominating the current space. From this foam of possibilities, we see the future arising because it's one of the things that hasn't changed about the internet. The innovation still remains on the edges. And one of the things that we noticed in doing that research was that Europe was one of the heartlands of this kind of innovation. Matrix, which you're using, primarily has a seed in the UK, although it was adopted by the French government. Mastodon is German. And we can also go into discussion forums, other forms of public infrastructure. I'll be writing a blog series on the AFF site, kind of describing and highlighting some of these, so if you have suggestions do email me. But one of the things that we realized was a problem, universally, globally, but particularly at a point in Europe, was that these services are not legible to lawmakers and reformers. One of the reasons why Facebook and Google loom large is because when you're at the highest levels of government, you become used to just dealing with other scaled-up giants. So what EFF wants to do is to try and work out some ways that we can help this distributed, decentralized community better speak to their representatives. I'm not building another fax machine bridge. I've learned my lesson there. But what we're going to do is work with our Brussels team. For those of you who know Christopher Schmarr, he leads our team in Brussels, and connect these two together. And I hope you'll join me, right, both in letting me know who are the people who should be talking to lawmakers about this, what they should be saying, because you have a lot of information here and a lot of connectivity here that can guide what the policies should be to change the incentives to let this grow. And most importantly, I want you to be a part of this conversation too because I think we're all here institution okay I think Danny we lost you right at the moment that you were going to tell us what we could bring to the table, which is really, really a pity. Maybe we can start to reconnect and I ask Mano Weiss and maybe you can come back later and we try to find him back and give him another minute to give him the opportunity to tell his last message to us. But then I want to ask Menno Weiss, he's a project manager of the European Culture Foundation and he will tell us a bit more about a call for culture of solidarity contributing to the digital public space in Europe. Menno, go ahead. I think you're sharing also slides. Menno, are you hearing me? Yes, hello. Do you see my slides without speaking notes now? Yes, there they are. Perfect. Good evening, everyone. As Marlène said, my name is Mene Revis, project manager at the European Cultural Foundation and tonight I'm inviting you to join a coalition for European public space. The European Cultural Foundation is an independent foundation based in Amsterdam since the 50s and we promote european solidarity through culture and we do that by developing and supporting initiatives that let us share experience and imagine europe imagine europe is about storytelling about envisioning a future for our continent. Experience Europe is about individual exchange and having a European experience like Erasmus that was developed in ECF in the 70s but also a current tandem program. And Share Europe is about developing a European public space. A space where we can share our stories, views and opinions, connect with each other and shape society together. Media outlets and digital infrastructures are obviously vital elements for such an inclusive space. the european cultural foundation the adesyan foundation also from the netherlands and compania di san paolo from torino italy are partnering with bach to develop and promote digital european public spaces you can join us and help europeans to reclaim the internet for the public good now there's a video i'm not sure the sound works, but it works also without sound. I do miss the music in a way. There should be a little nice little music. Yes, I'm sorry. It appeared not to be possible, technically. I mean, the business is very clear and the design is really nice, yes. You can always go to our website, culturefoundation.eu and watch the video with music. Gracias. In spring 2020, the European Culture Foundation launched a Culture of Solidarity Fund as a rapid response tool to support cross-border culture initiatives of solidarity in times of uncertainty and lockdown. We funded 73 projects with a total value of nearly 1.3 million euro. And now, a year later, the focus is shifting towards the long-term effects of this crisis, often pre-existing societal issues across Europe that became more visible during the crisis. Therefore, we hereby launch the thematic goal, Culture of Solidarity in Times of an Infodemic. And with infodemic, we mean specifically three things. First of all, the public debate in Europe is rarely beyond national perspectives or having a shared European interest as a starting point. And then I'm not talking just about the Margretes and the Wokkehoeksters of this continent. Also, the so-called legacy media, such as national broadcasters and larger newspapers, always report through a national lens. broadcasters and larger newspapers always report through a national lens. The second problem, media is often representing the views of the ones in power. Marginalised groups such as migrants are heavily underrepresented and in some countries any dissenting voice is silenced. And thirdly, fake news and disinformation about COVID-19 and about everything, preventive measures, vaccines, spread as rapidly as the virus itself. And that is because of profit-driven social media algorithms. And especially now, lockdowns have moved virtually every aspect of our lives online, our work, our social life, our entertainment. But also our civic life, our democratic engagement, so to say. The inhabitants of Europe lack a space where they can debate a shared European interest, based on solid facts and a culture of care. And this goal supports three different kinds of projects, cross border media collaborations that address societal issues across Europe that became more imminent because of the consequence of the pandemic, development of digital tools that are based on shared public values and also storytelling for increasing public awareness. And this should be projects that are based on this on the on the public values and and common space and they should produce both tangible results and also at the same time contribute to a sustainable impact please become part of this coalition for european public space and you can do that by expressing your interest. You can apply for the call for the first stage, expressing your interest. And then if you're selected, you will be invited to submit a full application. But you can also express your interest if you're a funder to collaborate with us or co-fund this call for projects. Here are my contact details so you can contact me if you are interested. Thank you very much. Very, very good. And what an opportunity for people. Could you then copy your information in the chat? Then we have an opportunity to contact you. Thank you so much, Manon. This is good that there is some funding for our projects that are creating public spaces. Danny, I want to give you one minute to finish your story. Just for the moment, we were saying what you expect from us that we can bring to the table, please. Okay, clearly this is too dangerous for the current internet to allow me to speak about it. But what I was going to say is the community of knowledge and the ideas about potential policies that can enable this wider innovation that's taking place at the edges, the real thinking that's going on about that is going on in this audience. So if you'd like to be part of this attempt to create a voice that's legible to lawmakers from the people who are building these tours and also a two-way communication so that the people here can also find out what's happening at the cutting edge of this innovation, drop me an email or, and I think this is okay for me to do, it's always hard to redirect stuff to people. I'm putting in a link to Christoph Schmahn who runs Brussels and European project here at EFN. And I'll put that in matrix and answer questions. Thank you for my extra minute. Thank you so much. I'm really glad that it's very resilient when you come back at the moment. Okay, these were the five pitches or stories of initiatives that are around and not just in Europe but on a global level. Many of the projects are of course not just bound to Europe, it's all about open protocols and interoperability. So we don't want to have a little corner in Europe where we are safe. This is something that we share with many other people in the world. And I want to hand it over to Alec Tarkovsky, he is also the co-founder together with Paul Keller of the Open Future Institute. A thank you for the open movement. Alec, there you are. Good to see you. And I think you're going to chair a panel and you will introduce people yourself. Thank you so much. This was my goodbye for the moment. And Alec, take it away. Thanks, Marlene. I always joke with my young daughters that I travel around the world. And when I'm on calls, I tell them, you know, I'm in different places. So today I told them I am in Amsterdam. It's very nice to visit your city. And indeed, we'll now have a panel where we'll try to broaden a bit this conversation and include several additional perspectives and I'm very happy we have a pretty valuable group of people which I will introduce in a moment and who hopefully by the magic of Hopin are all here. But I want to start with an anecdote in general. I've been a big fan of public spaces of the public spaces coalition for by now a few years and I was always very happy to see that it is the broadcasters stepping up. I remember when I was much younger, there was a policy debate in Poland, this must have been, who knows, maybe by now 20 years ago, when a politician, a person relatively old, said the internet must be regulated like television. And I remember me and my friends, we were then young students studying digital media, we're rolling our eyes and going, oh my goodness, what do you mean? It's not television. And here we are many years later with broadcasters proving to have some of the most ambitious, I think, and cool ideas about what to do, how to fix the internet. That's a really, really interesting turn of events. So I hope we can explore this idea further. The key questions have been asked. What is to be done in Europe? What do we do not to build another Google? And can we really do this? And I hope some of these questions we can answer together with my panelists. So joining us today from all over the world are Barbara Thomas, who's professor at the Institute of Media Science at the University of Bochum, and who's also chair of the board of the ZDAF Broadcaster. Ariadna Matas will be our second speaker. She's policy advisor at Europeana Foundation. We also have with us Aleks Alexander Baracic, who already spoke. You've just seen him a moment ago. He represents the Cultural Broadcasting Archive, but also is a member of the Public Spaces Coalition. We have also Danny O'Brien, who just spoke a moment ago. He will continue to be with us and will provide us with sort of a perspective from outside of Europe. And finally, we have with us Paul Tang, who's a member of the European Parliament. And it's really great to have in this conversation, a politician, especially one that is knowledgeable on digital issues. This is a relatively small group of MEPs with whom we're happy that we can have these really complicated conversations. Paul has been one of the rapporteurs working on the Digital Services Act package. So we're very glad that you're with us tonight. So we agreed that Alexander Rousseau set the stage for this conversation, which in general would be a loose talk between all of us, because largely of the time we agreed that this is a you know late hour and it's nicer to try to have a bit of a back and forth instead of maybe formal presentations but we're making sort of an exception for alexander so that he can set this stage a bit remind us um what is the issue at hand so alexander maybe you can briefly recap what is really the challenge we are facing and what is the solution that public spaces is proposing? A lot of things have been said before this evening. Maybe I'm going to bring a little bit more focus on the question of media and European public sphere. The challenge is actually in Europe compared, for example, to the US is that we have linguistic, cultural, and political diversity in Europe that is not known in the US, at least on the media sector. But this is the one thing. Much more crucial now is that we face a disruptive change in the business models of the media sector in Europe following the entering of the platforms, the big platform industry on the media market. And there are three effects I want to point out that are crucial. As already heard, there is extensive and invasive mass surveillance to produce personal profiles to market them to political and commercial customers, and typically in violation of the GDPR. Second, there is an incentive to create algorithms that maximize user attention to and engagement with services. I think this is also common knowledge, but to refocus it, this to a big extent defines the way we communicate publicly in Europe and we have seen this fool's polarization and I think it's not over exaggerated that the Brexit is one of and partly an outcome of this and the third and maybe the biggest effect is that there is a shift of advertising money from journalistic editorial mass media to targeted online advertising. And this leads to a situation that we here in Europe, the media sector, are not only dependent technically on the big platforms, but also more and more financially dependent. And apparently our political system does not have the situation under control, although there are measures underway that are important and hopefully like the Digital Service Act and the Digital Millennium Act. But I mean, I intentionally exaggerate, but content moderation won't tackle the dependency on the monopolistic infrastructure from China and the US. And so this way of regulating is not enough because we face, on the contrary, a situation that the media concentration is increasing and also public service media are on the peril. So this is in brief the, what did you say, the crisis we are facing, yes. Okay, that's interesting and by the way I think that's what's original in the public spaces approach, it tries to go beyond this dichotomy we see in policy debates. There's one side that says break them up, basically. The other is regulate them. But in both cases, your sort of object of attention is, you can call it big tech, you can call it GAFAM, you can use any other acronym that you like and list the names that you think are relevant or will be relevant in 10 years. And here public spaces come, basically, and this broad coalition using similar names, right? Usually the word public is there, digital, sometimes space, sphere, and says, well, we need to sort of go beyond that. So can you briefly say what does going beyond that entail? What's the solution that public spaces are exploring with partners? The idea is there is a mind shift we need in Europe. I mean, since these big platforms are the reason for this crisis, we need to get rid of them and get independent of them, which leads we need independent european digital infrastructure so uh with that is based on different values as mentioned before like plurality openness privacy or rule of law and um which in contrast to the monopolistic closed platforms has also other features, especially that is uses open standards that can be replicated. So open source and interoperability are main features of should be a main features of such a infrastructure. Then it has to be developed in a decentralized manner. So we do not need a EuroTube. A network of European platforms instead should be in place. There are lots of European champions out there and let's interconnect them. And here I want to mention an example, the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance, which is working on the hosting level to build something like that or propose something like that. Hopefully we're going to hear more from them. And third, I would say it has to be under democratic control. So this is what we face from the big platforms. This is no democratic organization of public debate. And here, I additionally want to point out, we have some experiences in Europe with democratic governance. I mean, public service media have been introduced as a result of the things that happened during fascism and the propaganda media that has been in place then. But we also see that public service media are under threat of governments in several member states of the European Union. So this would be not enough to set up a similar case. So the point is the need of inclusion of civil society and other measurements to secure that there is pluralism, even there is a populistic government in place for a certain time. And so I think a second thing that has to be put in place, a European interference when it comes to plurality. I mean, we cannot stand idly by and watch authoritarian politicians to take over control in a specific member state, take over the whole media landscape and say it's a national matter. I think we are far too interconnected and this affects not only Hungarians or Poles or Austrians. We've seen it in Austria as well when the populist rights were in the government. And so this affects us all. And so we cannot sit there and say the market has to rule it or it's a national affair. So some of the ideas how to set up such governance are also lined out in the architect paper, which I recommend to have a look on. And there it's clear that to build up such a European infrastructure there's investment needed and several other measures of the European Commission. But to give you also practical examples, Public Spaces is a coalition that almost reaches the whole Dutch population which underlines that there is a need for such a coalition and it's trying to, this practical coalition, to help their members and other public players to sanitize their digital presence and to remove their dependency on commercial platforms. The second example, I don't know how far I should outline it again, but we had it just half an hour before is the European cultural background 2.0. This is just the idea to interlink civil society platforms and to use the audiences that are there and to share them and to find new ways of communications to make it briefly. Maybe I want to new ways of communications to make it briefly. Maybe I want to point out that the funding for First Links is already there. So we are actually building a pipeline where we work with automatic speech recognition to make this audio searchable and also work on the search engine. And I think this is also a crucial aspect of the civil society as also has access to such machine learn applications and not only the big ones and Lastly I want just to have I want to mention steps. This is Stands for shared digital European public sphere this is the informer coalition of stands for Shared Digital European Public Sphere. This is an informal coalition of initiatives that are focused on this public spaces aspect. So it's besides public spaces, it's Edpos public open space beyond platforms and the cultural broadcasting archive. And we want to bring this idea of European infrastructure into the political debate and would be happy if you wanted to join us. So Volker already set up a brief set of websites. It's epos.eu and if you want to join us, there is a meeting after the conference on the 9th of April. You're invited to contact us. Okay, great. So we're starting to see examples, which I think was in the first session, really a lot of people thirsted for them. And together with this half hour session, we, plenty of these examples are proposed, but I would like to continue. You mentioned public broadcasters, they're key here, one of sort of key instigators. So Barbara, I would like to now invite you. We have this funny format. It feels a bit like a TV show that we're adding people to the call, you know, hello, where are you calling from? Welcome. So good to have you with us. And I want to continue this line of thought. Can you tell us basically why public media, public broadcasters are such an important point of reference and why the broadcasters are talking about this. Yeah, yeah. Very happy to. I was very happy and glad to hear all these initiatives that are going on for the digital public democratic internet. And I was as well happy to that public service broadcasting and public service media were mentioned already because, I mean, we heard a lot about that the internet is a predominantly commercial space and that it is needed to strengthen the democratic space. already, because I mean, we heard a lot about that the Internet is a predominantly commercial space and that it is needed to strengthen the democratic space. But so the question for me is who can do that? And even more, I want to add and want to underline that we are really in a hurry to develop this vision of a democratic Internet, because these oligopolistic structures that we have in the Internet, they are already about to destroy democracy. We could see this in the US. And so this is why I say it needs strong players and it needs money, of course, to build this. And why not refer to strong institutions that we have who have a really good experience in a non-profit orientation so what i want to say is that public service media can play really a constitutive role in creating a shared digital european public sphere as their logic is based on a remit that commits it to fundamental cultural and social purposes. And this is because it represents a media organization that must satisfy certain democratic, social and cultural needs beyond the consumer interest. And it has a long tradition in this. So it is possible to do that because it is protected to a certain extent from the market forces, to do that because it is protected to a certain extent from the market forces, for example, by the broadcasting fees and has experiences to withstand these market forces. So this is one asset of public service broadcasting. Then the cultural, social and so on obligations which are imposed or that are obligations for public service media, they are in the veins, they are in the blood of what people, public service broadcasting, public service media, they are in the veins, they are in the blood of what people, public service broadcasting, public service media, they are people who are working in this spirit and in this logic there. And what I find even more important, all these, let's say, privileges to be protected from the market and to have these obligations, they are safeguarded by by societal democratic control structures. So we talk a lot about civil society, but if you look closer to public service media, there are a lot of representatives of civil society organizations working in the broadcasting councils and so on. This is my background. I'm coming from the trade union and I was part of the broadcasting council and then elected into the board of the ZDF, our national public service broadcaster, as a media researcher, a professor from media studies. And I can counter there these interests of politicians, which are of course there. But we have, what I want to say is that we really have strong bodies who can work for a civil society-orientated public service media. There is another argument why I say that public service media are in a good position to play a strong role. They know that they have to renew their legitimation because they are under pressure and the situation is very different in many different countries. But they have to renew their legitimation on the one hand. But on the other hand, they are still important players. I mean, they reach up to 40% of the audiences in the countries. And to withstand all this commercial pressure that we have, we need strong players. And therefore, I want to get the public service media into on the board. Of course, that was mentioned, Alexander mentioned it, the heavy threat of public service media, especially in countries like Hungary or Poland, or let's talk about Slovenia. Just one of our colleagues is heavily under pressure there, who is a strong democratic media researcher. And this pressure, of course, is there. But let's be honest, if there would be sort of democratic infrastructure in the internet, it would be as well under the pressure of these governments. So the whole, what we want to build as democratic media, is it in the old analog way or in the digital space? It won't never be more democratic than a whole society is. We have to acknowledge that everything, what we build is inside these societies. And therefore, I argue to let's use the organizations and institutions that we have, encourage them, empower them, and make them even stronger, but as well, take them into the accountability to work for this, yes, democratic digital infrastructure in Europe. Thanks for me to... Oh, I'm sorry, I'm hearing myself. That's strange. I hope you can hear me well. I think the strong actor, this is for me this keyword that's crucial, right? Because we all are looking for these strong actors and asking like who can build this uh so i think you're right that that this is where we should be looking though it struck my mind thing here listening to you and thinking about the previous conversation there's some very interesting conversations that will happen between public broadcasters and the decentralized communities that build technologies that were mentioned earlier you know all the decentralized networks like mastodon and matrix and i decentralized communities that build technologies that were mentioned earlier, all the decentralized networks like Mastodon and Matrix. And I can imagine that will be some very interesting meetings where you get these broadcasters talking basically with geeks. I hope creative good energy will come out of that. But I'm mentioning this because I think there are big differences probably in broadly understood culture, values that will still need to be bridged but if we can do that I think the mix is exactly what we need because the publishers provide, the broadcasters I'm sorry, provide basically governance right and the geeks provide the infrastructure, the technology but speaking about strong institutions we have one more example that I honestly love which is the Europeana portal. Ariadna is with us. She's a lawyer at the Europeana Foundation. I hope she can speak a bit more on behalf of this basically piece of European public infrastructure that's unfortunately not as popular as I wish it was. Basically, it's the library of the future. And Ariadna, I'm really curious to hear your perspective on, you know, on significance of all of this. Thanks, Alec. Can I double check that you can hear me well? It's good. Okay, cool. So, well, thanks so much for the invitation, first of all. Actually, just yesterday, we were having a conversation with some colleagues at Europeana around this topic, and we really find it fascinating. So I think we realize there's a lot of things that have implicitly been driving us, but that we might have never put into words that I'm hearing in this conversation. So I'm very curious to see how we can further engage with everyone who's in this conference to try to maybe shape the next steps for our institution as well. And so I wanted to share that Europeana was born around 10 years ago. And generally it was kind of, to some extent it was a reaction to seeing that our shared cultural heritage, once digitized, was to some extent being monopolized by private interests. In this case, Google, with its very strong digitization efforts. efforts. But not only a reaction to that, I think it also started as a proactive vision on what we wanted our shared digital cultural heritage to become. And so 10 years from that moment, Europeana, I think, still very strongly reflects this to the extent that our current strategy that goes till 2025 very explicitly says that we know that these market forces are still around cultural heritage, that many heritage institutions engage with them because they have a very strong need for funding, but that we should not forget that our cultural heritage should serve public interest purposes. And so it should be backed up by public forces. And Europeana is funded by the European Commission since the get-go and I think well that's great for our shared cultural heritage but I think it's also great at least to me it gives me a kind of comfort that our European government sees this as a very extremely important topic that needs to be guaranteed and backed up by the public interest. And while listening to all these conversations, I think I'm trying to wrap my head around it. There's a lot of different directions. And I know Europeana contributes to many of them but there's definitely some evaluation we could do to understand to what extent the conversation needs to be brother. So for instance Europeana always focused very strongly not only on being driven by the public interest but also on the concepts of openness and making the digital heritage like giving it back to the public so there were a lot of conversations on removing copyright barriers and I know we don't we need to keep remembering that those are important. But I see that there's conversations going in many new directions. So even at Europeana, for instance, right now we're discussing the ethics of open access or the ethics of using AI on this digital cultural heritage. We're talking about inclusivity, about being environmentally friendly. And I know they all converge into these conversations around what we want our digital public spaces to become. So it's a very interesting moment, I think, for us as well. And generally speaking, I think there's also a very good opportunity for Europeana, who's been working a lot with the cultural heritage sector directly, not only aggregating their content, but also working directly with cultural heritage institutions to maybe involve them in these discussions and get them to remember that they are pillars that defend the public interest, because there are a lot of struggles at the moment for everyone, of course. But we can see just with the copyright discussions how still a lot of cultural heritage institutions are a bit reticent to openly sharing their content, even though this content belongs to the public, especially when it's in the public domain. And it all comes down to not having enough, and then thinking that they need to create a sustainable business model. And there's a big danger in making these public institutions that have always been driven by the public interest, try to compete with market forces in the same territory. And so I think bringing all of them into this conversation will probably give them a lot of strength and trust into how valuable their mission is. So I guess that's for some introductory words. I will leave it there. Thanks. If I can just briefly add one more thing I find really interesting about Europeana, looking forward that you really think a lot about data circulation. Basically, Europeana is a data aggregator, metadata aggregator. Libraries were really always about data. And so I think looking forward in the cultural sphere, you will be developing a really important issue. I think we often when you think public sphere, we think about content or maybe chat and social networks. And I think the fact that this is also about data flows is it will be really important in the future. So one more reason why Europeana is really in a key position. But so I would like to move on and have our next speaker contribute to the conversation. Our next speaker is Paul Tang. to the conversation, our next speaker is Paul Tang. Paul, by the way, I'm really impressed by your new campaign, AdSuck, which is a wonderful neologism and a really great brand, so to say. So it clearly proves that you're interested in regulating platforms. But since today we're talking about going sort of beyond regulation and looking for these new opportunities in Europe, I'm curious how you see it and especially whether in policy conversations that you take part in, is there place for these alternatives or are they mainly focused on regulating the big players? Well, I think, and this is why I'm happy to participate in this meeting, because I'm very glad to hear the alternatives and also visions on what a European public space could or should look like. But for me, they are compliments. So we now have two legislative perspectives on the table, and that's very exciting. That's the European way of dealing with big tech right european union is good at providing necklace legislation and rules um but we really need to break the market power of big tech and we are now controlled by commercial uh market powers that is a i think a prerequisite to have an alternative internet, so to say. So in my mind, these two go together. In that sense, you could say, well, let's break things, but let's build it back, that you could say. And I think that's crucial because I'm an economist from a background, so I do not underestimate the market power that tech companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon have, not only on their market as they establish their market, but also on the impact they can have on politics through lobbying. And the one reason why we started the AdSense campaign is first to make public aware that a lot of data are hoarded for personalized ads, but also to make sure that we have the public on our side when we start to fight the lobby of the big tech. So that's what we're going to need. So that's what we're going to need. And we need to have allies in this fight because what we try to do is really go to the heart of the perverse business model of Google and Facebook. It was already mentioned by Alexander, the economics of keeping our attention, leading to sensationalism, in effect, drying the resources of high quality journalism and more traditional media at the same time. Because Google and Facebook, about every $3 spent on advertising revenues goes to Google, Facebook and Amazon. This is also what inspired Australia to take a different course, right? Because they are in the same situation. It's not just they saw the growing market power of these companies. They also saw traditional journalism very much decline at every level, but also, for example, at the regional level. So what we try to do is put an end to the preferred business model of these companies. And coming back, so the ATSense campaign is aimed at the general public. Please support us. But we also are building a tracking-free ad coalition, which is a coalition of members of the European Parliament across parties, but also to find allies among advertisers and news publishers, because that's what we need. And in fact, you see that advertisers and news publishers, because that's what we need. And in fact, you see that advertisers and news publishers are so much used to the current system, even though it's mainly to the benefit of the of Google, Facebook and Amazon, that they are fair. They are scared to make this change and only a few speak out. But again, coming back to your original point, I think it's necessary if you want to build a different structure that you, well, try to tear down a part of the current structure to have the new initiative blossom. I think you highlight something very important, right? And maybe this should have been mentioned, I realize, even earlier in the conversation, that when we say alternative, this is not either or, right? We're not imagining a world where commercial platforms get closed down and replaced, but we're thinking about enriching the ecosystem by alternatives, right? And that's why I think the example you bring of an ad free coalition is very interesting i remember news from the netherlands that last year one of the i'm sorry hearing a bit of a buzz i hope it's not on oh it's gone i i suppose it was my coffee machine sorry oh okay a good time to have a coffee um but um that of the Dutch broadcasters managed to basically turn off AdTrackers and the whole trackers and they're fine, right? And that's a good case, right? And that really helps us also in the discussion, right? This is done by the STAIR, which is part of the Dutch public broadcast companies. And they, um well were more or less forced to abandon uh personalized ads and the hype and the micro targeting uh and move to a contextual advertising and with great success so that's the interesting so this was a large-scale experiment in the Netherlands, and it helps us to tell the story that once we go, let's say, OK, go after personalized ads and the hoarding of data, there are alternatives available because that's what you need to show. And in that sense, the alternative goes hand in hand. I do think, by the way, I like that that's given the dominance now of some of the American companies, but also Chinese companies, you need to reduce their, you could say their presence. They must be the losers of these changes. The good thing is, it's not just that we see that in Europe, the growing awareness that we have come to dependence on American commercial tech giants, but it's also on the other side of the Atlantic, right? Where you see the concerns on the other side of the Atlantic, right? Where you see the concerns on the other side of the Atlantic in the US are the same as here in Europe. When I speak with representatives from the senators, they share, irrespective of their Democrat or Republican, they all share the same concern. So they're also finding ways. They do it slightly different, right? They go directly after the market power for the federal trade commission looking into the the acquisition policy of google and facebook uh but it's moving in the same in the same direction so in my mind it cannot be the case that we have to still have this you for huge companies five or ten years from now. To be clear. But it also shows what a fight it's going to be. But it makes it exciting to do, in all fairness, because, of course, it seems that, well, like a hell of a fight. But then again, like I said, everyone starts to realize that journalism is taking, is underfundedfunded that we see people's attention draw to sensationalism that our public life becomes the poorer for it and affecting our democracies so we need to find alternatives Thanks Paul you mentioned by the way sort of the transatlantic debate which I think is super important here uh so this is a great moment to check whether danny o'brien is with us uh danny is uh um works already introduced himself earlier with eff good you're here so you know like is it indeed uh you know is that do things look the same from a U.S.-based perspective? I'm also curious, U.S. has a very different approach to public institutions, maybe not sphere, right? But can we expect American broadcasters? I can imagine PBS being in this conversation. But what do you think? Yeah, I think that there is a commonality of concern. And obviously the U.S. government, if it chooses to take up that powers, has a little bit more of a sharp knife to show the big American tech companies. I think one of the challenges you see is that one of the obvious things to do is to break up the companies and weaken their power in the market that way. And that's something that's easier to do in the United States where they're based, although there's a lot that the EU and other countries can do in that space. I think that, I mean, talking specifically about kind of the U.S. model for providing public goods, I mean, there is a difference. And I think, you know, part of it is the more federalized kind of nature. Historically, the US didn't go through the sort of top-down creation of institutions in the 20th century so much. So it does rely on both the private sector and also a very decentralized public sector. I think that the volunteer and charitable space occupies a lot of the area in the US. And we see that in kind of things that, for instance, Eli mentioned about Proapproach.net and these things. There's an assumption that the public sector exists separate from the government sector. But I think one the things that that's also true is that kind of variety of approach occurs all around the world like if you look to Latin America for instance or you look to India or Asia all of them have a different balance and a different approach to the public space or the public sphere. And all of them are being transformed by the Internet in this way. So there's a commonality of concerns, I think, particularly because of the export of this particular business model from the US. But I think there's a multiplicity of techniques to rebuild that public space. And I think it's really worth being able to listen to and watch and observe how that's happening everywhere because ultimately the thing about the internet is that it doesn't really have an idea of borders. And I think the European experiment has shown how it's possible to take ideas and share ideas across an internal border and still have it work in synchrony. Yes, I think that's in a way maybe what GDPR, why I find it interesting that it became sort of like an export product and we can argue whether it's successful or not, but it clearly was a contribution not just to a European space, but sort of a gift to the world. Maybe that's too much of a word, but in a way. If I can give, that's a very good example, because the amazing thing with the GDPR was, is it gave a language to describe this in the US context. US regulators would say, we want a GDPR and one of the best things about that is you know the GDPR isn't perfect. I think we still face some challenges to work out how to enforce it but there's an opportunity there for different governments to innovate in that space. And of course the GDPR is built on previous Council of Europe treaties. So there's room to explore all of this space. And I think that one of the risks we make as we try and change these incentives is we end up locking the big tech companies into their role currently. In an attempt to control them, we kind of put them in a jail, but it's like this beautiful golden jail where they still get the money coming through because they have to be the people that redistribute it to, say, the new services. I think we should try to avoid that. Okay, thanks, Danny. I think now we can sort of change the setup a bit and get a few more people here with their video feeds. Let's see if that works or not. Yep, seems to be working. And this is the symbolic moment where I'm happy. Whether any of you have further thoughts or want to comment on something that you heard to make it into a bit of a conversation? Yeah. May I? Go ahead, please. I found it very interesting or important what Paul Tang said about this, that the old and the new have to go together, or that you, Alec, ask if we would be in the position to say we tear down the commercial sector. I mean, this is far from realistic, of course, and the question is if it makes sense. But I only want you to remember that there are wise ways to combine these two sectors. In Germany, the whole idea about the old analog way broadcasting system was to say that commercial broadcasting is only allowed to exist if there is public service broadcasting. So there is from the regulation side, I'm very much a regulation and policy person. So from the regulation side, there is a connex, a strong legal connex made. But the prerequisite of it is that we still defend a sort of a primacy of politics. I mean, the problem that we have is that politics for a long time shied away from any regulation of the big tech. And we now see that politics can be successful if they are really eager and if they are decided to do something. And this is what we need to build or to empower this public sector of a democratic digital public sphere. But we need, of course, we need all these initiatives who are fighting for them and who are putting the topic on the agenda. But we need as well a strong will and the eagerness and the preparedness of politics to act for this common good in our communicative sphere. Can I? Go ahead. Can I add to this? I'm not sure that I can be heard right. Coming back to why I think what we need is also funding for initiative. Usually traditional media has been funded partly by advertising, but much of this advertisement money now goes to the big tech. So you need to change the market structure and the rules of the game to make sure that much of this money is not going to the few large companies, but that it goes to the news sites, to the publishers, and that this is where it ends up. And these are shocking numbers. I think the Guardian tried for once. We spent one euro, one pound, it must be in the case of the Cardian, one pound on advertisement, how much does it end up to the Cardian itself? So in the end, 70 cents disappeared and only 30 cents ended up with the Cardian. That's the situation. That 70 cents can be used in a very different way, leading to much more alternatives. And this will broaden the scope for for for building alternative structures that was also interesting from the Dutch example the stair that would that I just discussed before it was also the small broadcasting companies that were benefiting from it's not just a large but also the small because what you you get is you have, in fact, what the current situation is now, if you have, because in the current system, you are identified, let's say, as a reader of the Financial Times or a reader of Le Monde or a reader of Le Spiegel. You don't have to go to their sites to be identified as such because the data are already out there. So the trademarks of Spiegel the monday and the financial times is eroding this is the situation where and so in i when you think about more traditional media advertisements have always been a reportant tool of funding that uh the funding that media and they and i clearly agree with barbara you would preferably have a mix of public and private but currently within this mix it's uh it's very difficult to have public. Public means because private is dominated. So if I can add, I think one interesting thing that gets very complex at some point is the whole conversation that maybe that public part is not a only infrastructure so say a social network we could imagine right the public social network but it's more things like protocols and apis so sort of the that invisible network right i my problem with that conversation is that it very quickly gets really technical and complicated eu is right now uh collecting feedback on its new interoperability or updated interoperability framework, and I think it's a consultation in which basically only technical players, technical associations, technical bodies will participate. But symbolically, I think that's also that's why I find Europeana important. Right. It's not only asking, like, how do we keep servers and create content platforms, platforms but like how does how is the data range i think that's the big conversation and again one where where it's about finding the right balance i think the commercial actors will be there providing data is the fascinating idea of interoperability that's in the dsa d DMA. Sorry. It's another funny thing, the acronyms. Yeah. So I think that one of the things that's worth bearing in mind is that a lot of this exploitation of tracking technology comes from what turned out to be flaws in those underlying protocols, right? It's just an accident that a web browser allows you to stick an image from another server and have that other server be able to make this kind of analysis. So there is a possibility of changing this from the technical underneath. And one of the pressures that I think is interesting that have played on Google and Facebook is ad lockers or anti-tracking systems. I mean EFF has built one specifically to prevent that kind of tracking. Now that's not sufficient on its own. You can't change the world with like a browser plug-in but I think that you can work to make things visible when you build alternatives you can you can fix those bugs as they as they go through okay yes go ahead may i take up your idea about if it's all too technical which of course it is not because um eli parisa took this word of the techno-social system very important. And he mentioned that. And I think it's very important when, of course, we need the knowledge about to build the technical side of all this. But we always need to know what for and what is the perspective. And this is one reason as well why I mentioned only the organization that I know best, Public Service Broadcaster, they have this experience. Just to give you an example, when they are now about personalization in their streaming services, then of course personalization is needed. And there is a lot of a bunch of work going on how to reconcile the need for personalization, which had been imposed, of course, by the use of Netflix and so on, which are very much very good in personalization. And to reconcile this was the creating and serving the remit and so on. So this is why I say in a techno-social system, there is a need to use what we and to develop what sort of technical operations are needed, but to do it in the spirit that is democratic and social and to the common good orientated. And if we leave this only to the market, then we get at the fringes of what is useful for democracy. So I want to introduce a comment that we have in chat. Erinma Ocho writes regarding this whole debate, Europe, transatlantic, I understand that point of our conversation was written, but then why not embrace working with the global south? Europe itself is a border, right? A fair point, an obvious statement here, and she goes on to say, with the internet, I don't have to belong anywhere, right? And it's also an amazing starting point for building a commons. This, by the way, makes me think of a name I need to drop into this conversation, which is Wikipedia. It needs to be mentioned in these discussions. It's like one more really very important civic infrastructure that we have, one that functions globally. But so for me, this is an obvious comment. Are we maybe lacking imagination by limiting this to Europe? What's your take? Also, I noticed Ariadna, you wanted to speak. Maybe you want to pick this up. Could Europeana be global? Actually, I think you mentioned kind of the magic word that I was going to pull out to argue that to some extent, yes. But of course, we have a European border. But I think, yeah, I mean course we have a european border but i think yeah i mean we have started working more and more with wiki data and that's just possible because we've worked to make our metadata cc0 so with no legal barriers to its reuse and then worked to making all this data interoperable with the data in other platforms. So I think here's also where kind of a technical concept meets a social purpose. And I think, as Barbara was arguing, technical development has had that social purpose in the back of its mind. But other than that, I don't know to what extent we're connecting enough with other sectors. I think I can think of some standards that we're using jointly with other parts of the world that that would be it so far. kind of agitators, we were lobbying the BBC to adopt Creative Commons style, CC style licenses and open up its archives. There were a lot of challenges to that just in terms of licensing terms. But one of the ones that I was surprised to hear is people were like, well, no, this is a national resource. And if we freely license it, then people from other countries will be able to get it for free without paying the license fee. And I think sometimes there's this sort of risk, right, that you create a public good. And because the internet doesn't have any borders, that public good is used by the public all around the world. And I think that it's an interesting challenge to face because there's a flip side to it, that if you start funding European culture and then giving it away, then people can accuse you of a sort of cultural imperialism because you've put pressure on that and it's gone out to the rest of the world. But at the same time, you don't want to lock down content to artificial borders just because there was a time when radio waves couldn't reach much further and you built these things on a national underlying infrastructure. Okay, our time is almost over, so I'll ask you one more question from our chat. It's a philosophical one, unfortunately, so it might be hard to answer, but it's a good one. Leslie Grid9 asks on Matrix, was the internet ever a public space that now is invaded by commercial entities or are we trying to build public spaces on top of the now commercial internet if I was to sort of make it into a more direct question I would ask so is our ambition also to deal with the public nature of the internet which becomes a big issue is that part of this conversation or we should keep it limited to issues like platforms uh which is maybe a simpler topic though also big how do you see it guys and gals big question for the end, I know. Okay, maybe just I'll give you the start. But I think if, well, and I don't know to what extent I can speak on behalf of Europeana because that's, well, I think that if we're having this conversation is because we're chasing some ideals, so it wouldn't be enough to stop at the limitations of just some platforms. And I think, like, I think then the conversation needs to go on to a broader level. And I think maybe this is to a very large extent related to one of the presentations at the keynote where there was this boat losing water. I think, I mean, we need to go back to the very basics to fix the real problem. So I don't know what that would take, though. I also noticed the boat metaphor and Eli later talked about, I don't want to rock the boat. I want to build one. And probably, yes, if you're in the business of swimming on a boat, you want the water basically to be clean and navigated well and managed properly. So in this sense, I would agree, right? I think in the end, there is a huge conversation today about whether the internet will remain open, whether certain values will be preserved at this most global scale. And I think ultimately we are part of that conversation. I agree, Ariadna. at this most global scale and i think ultimately we are part of that conversation i agree ariadna okay any last thoughts quick comments that you want to make before we finish can i come back to one remark um that sometimes discussions become very technical and hard to follow and this is what we can't use because we need my experience in politics and for change is that you need common stories and leading to some form of consensus like i said when i talk with my counterparts on the other side of the atlantic at least what we have in common is our concerns but we don't have a common story and how to get from this situation to a better situation that's what we need so we can't afford to be attacked to have technical i think interoperability is crucial in uh for all the discussions here but it can't be a technical concept it must be a social political uh political concept because only then we can reach out to publics and politics to make the changes that we want that sounds to me like a very good uh remark, Paul. Thank you for that. So I'll hand this over now to the organisers. I'm not sure whether Alexander will come back to us. By the way, maybe I should have mentioned he's not here because of technical limitations. Alexander, apologies for that. So maybe if you'd like to make a final comment we can probably um squeeze you in otherwise uh i think we're wrapping up so i can thank the oh here you are would you like to make a final remark uh you opened this chat so what's your final takeaway? Yeah, I mean, maybe some sort of reaction on arguments that have been brought. I mean, if the GDPR would be taken seriously, we'd have broken down the advertising industry already. I mean, if you follow the discussions with the Shams 2 judgment and the lawsuits the Shams group filed there are 102 companies that are sued different data protection authorities the authorities should stop the transfer data to the US and if they will succeed then there will be upheaval. This will be really interesting. But I'm worried that we're lagging behind with this regulation again. Google's blog has been presented, and they can do the data work without third-party cookies. And so again, we could have set up a new regulation to tackle this again. And there's a second thing. It's not only this shift of advertising money that makes the situation so sensible at the moment. And on the other hand, there is this media change. I read, for example, a study that predicted for Austria the latest daily newspaper to be printed in 2028. In Germany, it would be 2030. So it's been a couple of years. And I heard one of the big ones, one of the papers will stop next year. I'm not sure. I mean, just rumor. And if you follow the statistics with radio, I mean, people who are younger than 35, among just 30 or 40%, even listen to linear radio. So I mean, there will be in a couple of years, only digital media be there. So this is on one hand a big uh threat but on the other hand a big opportunity and so um i again want to force this point uh here in europe we had would have a big opportunity now if there was uh um for example a big funding uh vehicle by the european union to say okay let's build this infrastructure with different layers to build up our own digital sphere and not just do regulation. And what I think this moment is really crucial and we should really take this momentum at the moment. So I'm with Paul Keller and I think there are big chances to do this thanks alexander i also feel you basically added a timer there's a clock ticking uh these these dates you provide uh really make one thing that there's a certain time we have basically to imagine and then build these new types of public media public For me, I'd rather see this as an exciting opportunity rather than some scary situation. It's, I think, what being an optimist is about. Thank you very much once again. This is time to wrap this panel up. And I will now hand over the virtual microphone back to Merlin, who will finish this day's session. Yes, thank you so much for a rich discussion and I think what Paul said is to find language that is accessible for people, interfaces that are accessible for people. I think that is a very good challenge for us also for the next day. At the sameTel, I believe we are creating this language, that we are finding common ground and finding values that we want. And I think the last contribution that we not just have to push back, which is in itself a huge effort, and I think there's legislation, but we don't have enforcement. And enforcement costs money, so we have to really spend money on the enforcement of the laws that are in place and the new laws that will be in place. And I see this on a Dutch level that it's really difficult to find, to give the authorities to people to do the work, to do the job, to enforce what's already there. But it's also about building and creating and also funding the next generation Internet. So I think we saw a lot of initiatives covering all that ground. This is the end of today. I think we already have covered all the ground. It feels like a full day of conference already. But we have a whole new day day and I think Sander will join me to talk about tomorrow. Sander can you join me for the... Yes there you are. Hi. Ah there you are. Again it's a bit strange we're both in the same building but we use this to discuss this together. With us, actually, there are many more people behind the scenes that are helping us to organize this. So the people from Pakhuis Zwijger, also for tomorrow, we move a lot of the activities there. People from Public Spaces, the foundation, that will also participate tomorrow. People from WAG that are joining us and helping us out here. And of course, the support from the Ministry of Inner Affairs that also supports the conference. And then, of course, all the other partners that have already been on stage, like the European Cultural Foundation and others. So I think this is already a huge, beautiful collaboration. And there is this interesting link to the Ministry of Inner Affairs that also underscribes the necessity of a public space on the internet. But Sander, what is going to happen tomorrow? What time do we have to log on? And are there breaks? Can we still have coffee or we just have to continue working in this? Stay online all day, yeah. It's a bit challenging, is it? Just keeping our eyes focused on this screen. Actually, I do have a nice pitch for tomorrow, which is during our lunch break, we'll have yoga online. Our colleague at WACH, Gary Carter, will guide us through a yoga session because we realize that moving our conference to an online format means that you have to make sure that all your other senses are attended to in some way as well during the day. But we do have quite a packed program. We're going to start at 10 in the morning, Amsterdam time, tomorrow. We'll be broadcasting live from Pakhuis De Zwijger, another partner, as Marlene mentioned. And we have quite a packed show. So some of the sort of key highlights that I want to share here as a taster is Jose van Dijk is's doing the opening tomorrow she wrote a very interesting book on the platform society she's a professor media and digital society at the University of Utrecht we've got who else should I mention we've got actually the co-founder of Matrix, Amadine Lepap will be in one of our sessions where we'll be exploring some of the history of what went on in creating public spaces in the past and trying to take that towards the future. Ethan Zuckerman will be there. Bill Thompson, he's here. I saw him in the chat earlier. We'll share some of his experience. He's been around for a long time, obviously. Matt Locke will be there with the public media stack. Solana Larsson from Mozilla, as you may know, MozFest is happening this period as well. She's the leading editor of the Internet Health Report, and they'll be sharing their perspective on how to involve community in their work. Katrina Dowell will be there from the MyData organization. And we're really trying to bring lots of different people together who are working on sort of some initiatives that would be part of these public spaces of the future. Then we also have some roundtables, which are focused on some very specific initiatives. So we're trying to bring people together that want to work or are working on aspects such as hybrid events which is something that everyone says is going to stick around we will not fully sort of go back to offline only but the future is hybrid how do we make sure that that is in line with our public values is one aspect that we'll be discussing at one of these round tables we'll talk about digital identity there we'll talk about how public organizations can move towards using open source much more effectively and what is needed in terms of the supply of those types of open source initiatives and what changes need to happen. There's one round table specifically looking at the libraries and the library as a public space, which I think also so it fits nicely onto the discussion that was here earlier some of the program will be in Dutch some of the program will be in English I'll share the link in the chat later where you can see which of the sessions are in Dutch and which are in English and then at the end of the conference tomorrow, we actually have a signing of a declaration that some civil society organizations in the Netherlands have worked on in preparation for our parliamentary elections. As you may know, in the Netherlands next week we'll have parliamentary elections on the Wednesday. And some of us have sort of put together a list of 10 points that we think are important for our new cabinet to tackle and we've asked political parties whether they want to subscribe to those 10 points and the political parties that are doing that will sign that declaration at the end of tomorrow. Maybe because this collaboration between I think it's Bits of Freedom and Amnesty International, Upper States and WAG and there are several others, I think this is already a big step to collaborate and to join forces in putting this into a political strategy. Absolutely and I think it's really nice to see that we build bridges between you you know, like a civic tech organization, such as Open State Foundation and some of the more traditional human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, who in the Netherlands, in the Dutch chapter, are really working on this technology policy and AI policy as well. So it's a demonstration of, you know, the breadth of organizations that are needed to collaborate. And I think that will be a sort of core threat throughout the program tomorrow well it's a full program and I think we're there are a little breaks there's yoga in between maybe some moments to have some drinks but then I think it only finishes late tomorrow so it's quite a I hope everybody sticks around and I think it only finishes late tomorrow. So it's quite a... I hope everybody sticks around. And I think I'm really looking forward for tomorrow. Let's see. Sorry. I wanted to just make sure if people were wondering how do I join that program tomorrow, it's actually the same link. It's the same place we are now that will be used tomorrow for the conference. There will be more channels, so there will be more things happening at the same link it's the same place we are now that will be used tomorrow for the conference there will be more channels so there will be more things happening at the same time so now only one room or one so there will be more smaller groups and and and larger audiences more diverse yeah good okay well and of course there's a lively discussion going on and sharing at the Matrix spaces, for public spaces. So that's good. So we have a place where we can find each other and continue tomorrow as well. Thank you so much, Sander. Thank you so much, all the people that contributed today. Most of them will also come back tomorrow. So that's good. And thank you so much from the WAG. Have a good will also come back tomorrow, so that's good. And thank you so much from De Waag. Have a good evening. See you tomorrow.