The successful design of digital democracy systems presents a multidisciplinary research challenge. In this talk, I argue that tools and techniques from computational social choice (COMSOC) should be employed to aid the design of online decision-making platforms and other digital democracy systems.  

The Internet is dead, long live the cloud!
The future of the internet industry is in its computational infrastructure, not data or selling ads. This means that the entities that control key infrastructure, like cloud computing and chips, hold sway. Companies like ASML, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), rather than X or Meta, will become the tech industry's most powerful players. To the extent this is not already the case, it will be their choices that influence what our wired world looks like. In this keynote, I will present a case study from my ethnographic research at the University of Delft, drawing out how the cloud's private networking backbone is supplanting the public Internet. I discuss the consequences of this capture by the cloud and will speculate on the viability of the continued existence of a consumer-facing public internet in the foreseeable future. 

Major challenges commonly associated with digital technology, such as misinformation, hate speech, and political polarization, are widely perceived to require policy interventions. However, consensus on the nature and severity of these issues, and thus the appropriate actions, is lacking. This disagreement is typical in politics, where problem definitions and solutions are often contested. Yet, in the realm of digital technology, this debate is particularly intense. Policymakers frequently struggle to grasp the complexities of these issues, and the definition of problems is highly politicized, a situation exacerbated by digital technology itself. The talk will explore these issues with a focus on artificial intelligence. 

In the landscape of democratic evolution, internet voting emerges as a transformative force, demanding our attention and scrutiny. Scholars unanimously recognize the pivotal role trust plays in the embrace and utilization of this technology by citizens. The question, however, is which facet of trust holds the key – trust in government or trust in technology? The keynote speech presents a multidimensional trust model and demonstrates its efficacy through a comprehensive test leveraging on original cross-sectional data and a preregistered experiment conducted in Estonia. Our investigation reveals a robust correlation between trust in government and trust in i-voting technology. Notably, while both dimensions influence the inclination to i-vote, trust in technology emerges as the primary driver determining the choice between online and in-person voting. These findings offer a significant contribution to the understanding of internet voting dynamics and provide practical insights for the implementation of technology in democratic processes. Understanding the nuanced interplay between trust in government and trust in technology is imperative for navigating the future landscape of electoral rules and democratic voting practices. 

In the vibrant landscape of local digital democracy, where citizens actively contribute ideas, vote on them and even influence budget decisions through platforms like Consul Democracy, success is far from guaranteed. On the contrary: far too often, the high expectations are not met. Neither from the citizens' point of view nor from the administration's perspective. Drawing on the collective experience of over 200 cities worldwide within the Consul community, we aim to unravel the essential elements that underpin transparent, inclusive, and impactful democratic processes at the municipal level. This session will go beyond theory and look at real-life examples that can be used to demonstrate the key success factors.