Technology, autonomy, and manipulation

Since 2016, when the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal began to emerge, public concern has grown around the threat of “online manipulation”. While these worries are familiar to privacy researchers, this paper aims to make them more salient to policymakers — first, by defining “online manipulation”, thus enabling identification of manipulative practices; and second, by drawing attention to the specific harms online manipulation threatens. We argue that online manipulation is the use of information technology to covertly influence another person’s decision-making, by targeting and exploiting their decision-making vulnerabilities. Engaging in such practices can harm individuals by diminishing their economic interests, but its deeper, more insidious harm is its challenge to individual autonomy. We explore this autonomy harm, emphasising its implications for both individuals and society, and we briefly outline some strategies for combating online manipulation and strengthening autonomy in an increasingly digital world

National Profiles of Work Integration Social Enterprises: United Kingdom

This paper is part of a larger research project entitled "L'entreprise sociale : lutte contre l'exclusion par l'insertion économique et sociale" (ELEXIES). This project is run jointly by the European Network of Social Integration Enterprises (ENSIE), the European Confederation of Workers' Co-operatives, Social Co-operatives and Participative Enterprises (CECOP) and the EMES European Research Network. The ELEXIES project is financed by the European Commission (DG Employment and Social Affairs) in the framework of the "Preparatory Action to Combat and Prevent Social Exclusion". The part of the project in which this paper takes place is co-ordinated by Eric BIDET (Centre d'Economie Sociale, University of Liège, Belgium) and Roger SPEAR (Co-ops Research Unit, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK)