A case study examined by Panoptykon Foundation and showcased by the Financial Times, demonstrates how Facebook uses algorithms to deliver personalised ads that may exploit users’ mental vulnerabilities. The experiment shows that users are unable to get rid of disturbing content: disabling sensitive interests in ad settings limits targeting options for advertisers, but does not affect Facebook’s own profiling and ad delivery practices. While much has been written about the disinformation and risks to democracy generated by social media’s data-hungry algorithms, the threat to people’s mental health has not yet received enough attention.

European officials urged Big Tech to ban Kremlin-related accounts in the effort to tackle the propaganda online, as the Internet – and particularly the social media – became an important front of Russian invasion on Ukraine. But such “digital sanctions” are just a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. Yet again we call therefore for robust platform regulations in the Digital Services Act instead. The current crisis only confirms how badly overdue systemic solutions are.

On 27 September the hearing was held at the European Court of Human Rights, following the application against Poland lodged by activists from Poland’s Panoptykon Foundation and Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, joined by a human rights attorney. The group alleges that the state violated their right to privacy by allowing the intelligence agencies to act beyond scrutiny. Their case has been supported by the United Nations special rapporteur, Polish Ombudsman and the European Criminal Bar Association, attending the Strasbourg hearing as well.

On June 4, 2014, one day before the anniversary of the Snowden revelations, Poland celebrates 25 years since the fall of an authoritarian regime. On this occasion, President Obama is visiting Poland and meeting with many heads of states—including officials who were affected by the mass surveillance scandal carried out by the NSA. Since October 2013, the Panoptykon Foundation, a Polish NGO, has tried to understand the relationship between the Polish and United States’ secret service organizations. Panoptykon believes that the Polish government, by accepting mass and pre-emptive surveillance, is reverting back to the much contested practices of the former, authoritarian regime — practices that triggered the revolution 25 years ago. Thus, the NGO has organized a user-generated campaign for June 4, urging people to welcome President Obama to Poland by vocalizing their thoughts on mass surveillance.

Data-driven technologies are not neutral. A decision to collect, analyse and process specific kind of information is structured and motivated by social, economic and political factors. Those data operations may not only violate the right to privacy but also lead to discrimination and oppression of socially marginalised communities. Discriminatory data processes and algorithms are a massive challenge for the modern human rights movement that requires non-standard solutions. The report “Between Anti-discrimination and Data” – tries to shed light on this problem from the perspective of European civil society organisations.