Talk, presented in German on May 10th at re:publica in Berlin with Christian Stöcker (dubbed version below)

Intermediaries like Facebook judge the relevance of content based on the public’s immediate reaction to a much greater degree than do traditional media.  Use of these intermediaries for forming public opinion is leading to a structural change in public life. Key factors here are the algorithmic processes used as a basic formational tool and the leading role that user reactions play as input for these processes. Since they are the result of numerous psychological factors, these digitally assessed and, above all, impulsive public reactions are poorly suited to determining relevance in terms of traditional social values. These values, such as truth, diversity and social integration, have served in Germany until now as the basis for public opinion and public life as formed by editorial media.

 

Literature (Github)