Final article on Public Values in a Digital Society projects

SIDN Fund and Adessium Foundation have supported nine projects, designed to protect and promote public values in a digital society, through a call for proposals Public Values in a Digital Society. In her final article on this theme, journalist Eva de Valk takes stock of these projects.

Public debate at risk

In her article, De Valk describes the necessity of these projects: “Robust and free public debate is essential to our democratic society. Digitisation has created new opportunities for such debate: never before have ordinary people had such easy access to information, or such ability to communicate ideas widely, initiate debate and organise themselves. Nevertheless, the current digital landscape also represents a threat to our public values. A handful of large technology corporations have a disproportionate control over the digital landscape, thus placing public debate at risk.”

Series of articles on the subject

She has also taken stock of how the projects responded to this situation, how the projects unfolded and which lessons were learned in the process. Prior to this final article, De Valk wrote a series of articles on the subject, for which she conducted substantive talks with several project leaders.