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Labor-atories of Digital Economies: Latin America as a Site of Struggles and Experimentation
Full text linkThis article argues that the digital labor developments and struggles are labor-atories of digital economies, with special focus in Latin America. This means that, on the one hand, capital is experimenting and updating forms of control and exploitation - through the long trajectory of informality and dependency and, on the other hand, workers are trying and experimenting forms of organizing and collectivities, also updating Latin American rich histories of organizing, solidarity economies and community technologies. The emphasis on “labor” means that these laboratories are products of class struggles and capital-labor relationships. The paper unpacks the argument with four short insights from ongoing research: 1) Latin America as not only of research site; 2) The updating of informality in the Latin American AI context; 3) Global implications of data work, AI value chains, and the cultural sector; 4) Digital solidarity economies as a Latin American response to the current digital labor scenario, including digital sovereignty and autonomy.The Weizenbaum Institute is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF
TikTok Content Scraper
No full textThis scraper allows you to download both TikTok videos and slides without an official API key. In addition, about 100 metadata about the video, author, music, video file and hashtags can be scraped. The scraper was built as a Python class and can be inherited by a custom parent class. This allows the scraper to be easily connected to a database, for example.
Version 2.0 represents a complete architectural redesign of the first version aimed at reducing code complexity, improving usability, and introducing new features including SQLite database integration for progress tracking.
This project was originally developed at:
https://github.com/Q-Bukold/TikTok-Content-Scrape
Weizenbaum Report 2025: Politische Partizipation in Deutschland
Full text linkDer Weizenbaum Report ist eine jährlich erscheinende Publikation zur politischen Partizipation in Deutschland. Er stellt Befunde der bevölkerungsrepräsentativen Befragung der Forschungseinheit Weizenbaum Panel vor, die seit 2019 durchgeführt wird. Im Zentrum steht die Untersuchung verschiedener Formen politischer Partizipation im Zeitverlauf und ihre Entwicklung unter Digitalisierungsbedingungen.
Die sechste Welle der Befragung im Jahr 2024 legte dabei einen besonderen Schwerpunkt auf die finanzielle Teilhabe und Ungleichheiten bei der Nutzung digitaler Bezahldienste. Die Ergebnisse geben Einblick in die Entwicklung der politischen Mediennutzung, die Einstellungen der Bürger:innen gegenüber der Demokratie, in den Einsatz gegen Hasskommentare und Falschnachrichten im Internet, die Haltung gegenüber Sozialen Medien und Künstlicher Intelligenz sowie in Trends traditioneller und digitaler politischer Partizipationsformen.#### Abstract
The Weizenbaum Report is an annual publication on political participation in Germany. It presents the results of a representative survey of the German population, conducted by the Weizenbaum Panel research unit since 2019. The focus is on examining different forms of political participation over time and their development under the conditions of digitalization.
In the sixth wave of the survey in 2024, a special focus was placed on financial participation and inequalities in the use of digital payment services. The results provide insights into the development of political media use, citizens' attitudes towards democracy, the use of hate speech and fake news on the Internet, attitudes towards social media and artificial intelligence, and trends in traditional and digital forms of political participation.Der Weizenbaum Report 2025 „Politische Partizipation in Deutschland“ wurde durch das Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) gefördert (Förderkennzeichen 16DII131 – Deutsches Internet-Institut). Die Datenerhebung fand in Kooperation mit der Freien Universität Berlin statt
Regulating Digital Platforms in Times of Democratic Crisis – What is Next for Germany and the EU?
Full text linkThis paper examines recent changes in the content moderation practices of major social media companies. Digital platforms have become a defining feature of contemporary societies. As their infrastructures increasingly mediate commercial activity, political organization, cultural life, and more, the retraction of measures meant to uphold standards and trust in their influence over online speech raises significant concerns. This paper briefly analyzes these developments in the context of ongoing processes of democratic erosion, particularly in the U.S. The goal is to foster future research and public debate by offering key insights into the implications of the current scenario for Germany and the European Union
LGDE: Local Graph-based Dictionary Expansion
Full text linkWe present Local Graph-based Dictionary Expansion (LGDE), a method for data-driven discovery of the semantic neighbourhood of words using tools from manifold learning and network science. At the heart of LGDE lies the creation of a word similarity graph from the geometry of word embeddings followed by local community detection based on graph diffusion. The diffusion in the local graph manifold allows the exploration of the complex nonlinear geometry of word embeddings to capture word similarities based on paths of semantic association, over and above direct pairwise similarities. Exploiting such semantic neighbourhoods enables the expansion of dictionaries of pre-selected keywords, an important step for tasks in information retrieval, such as database queries and online data collection. We validate LGDE on two user-generated English-language corpora and show that LGDE enriches the list of keywords with improved performance relative to methods based on direct word similarities or co-occurrences. We further demonstrate our method through a real-world use case from communication science, where LGDE is evaluated quantitatively on the expansion of a conspiracy-related dictionary from online data collected and analysed by domain experts. Our empirical results and expert user assessment indicate that LGDE expands the seed dictionary with more useful keywords due to the manifold-learning-based similarity network
The COVID-19 Crisis, Digitalization, and Organizational Change
Full text linkThe study explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the digitalization and organizational changes in companies across different sectors in Germany. The research addresses the extent to which the pandemic accelerated digitalization, the variations in digitalization focus among companies, and the interplay between technological and organizational changes. Data were collected through surveys conducted in two waves in 2021 and 2022, encompassing 540 and 605 companies, respectively. The research employed ordered logistic regression to analyze the factors influencing digitalization investments. Key findings indicate that the pandemic acted as a catalyst for digitalization, with management awareness and employee acceptance being significant drivers. Notably, there were disparities in digitalization efforts, influenced by the economic impact of the pandemic, sectoral differences, and prior levels of digitalization. While companies with existing digital infrastructure initially led the way, less digitalized companies began to catch up over time. Organizational changes, such as new leadership concepts, cross-functional cooperation, and flexible working hours, were also linked to increased digitalization efforts. The study concludes that the pandemic has not only accelerated technological changes but also necessitated parallel organizational transformations to support these developments
Exploring temporal dynamics in digital trace data: mining user-sequences for communication research
Full text linkCommunication is commonly considered a process that is dynamically situated in a temporal context. However, there remains a disconnection between such theoretical dynamicality and the non-dynamical character of communication scholars' preferred methodologies. In this paper, we argue for a new research framework that uses computational approaches to leverage the fine-grained timestamps recorded in digital trace data. In particular, we propose to maintain the hyper-longitudinal information in the trace data and analyze time-evolving 'user-sequences,' which provide rich information about user activity with high temporal resolution. To illustrate our proposed framework, we present a case study that applied six approaches (e.g., sequence analysis, process mining, and language-based models) to real-world user-sequences containing 1,262,775 timestamped traces from 309 unique users, gathered via data donations. Overall, our study suggests a conceptual reorientation towards a better understanding of the temporal dimension in communication processes, resting on the exploding supply of digital trace data and the technical advances in analytical approaches
Weizenbaum Panel’s Literature Digest: August 2025
Full text linkDer Literatur Digest ist eine monatlich erscheinende Zusammenstellung des aktuellen Forschungsstandes zu Themen an der Schnittstelle zwischen Digitalisierung und Politik. Er präsentiert die neuesten Erkenntnisse zu Fragen der politischen Partizipation und guter Bürgerschaft in Zeiten der Digitalisierung.The Literature Digest is a monthly compilation of the current state of research on topics at the nexus of digitalization and politics. It presents the latest findings on issues of political participation and good citizenship in times of digitalization
Harmonised Standards and Conformity Assessments in the AI Act: Strengthening Independent and Participatory Oversight
Full text linkAdopted by the European Union in 2024, the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) constitutes a landmark framework for the regulation of AI systems within the EU’s internal market. While recognising its significance for fostering accountability and trustworthy AI, this position paper focuses on two central mechanisms for its effective implementation: (1) technical standardisation and (2) conformity assessments. It argues that, in their current formulation, both mechanisms risk an excessive reliance on private governance, thereby constraining democratic oversight and the effective protection of fundamental rights. The AIA implements its legal obligations through technical standardisation under Article 40, delegating detailed requirements to the European standardisation organisations. Compliance with these harmonised standards creates a presumption of conformity, giving companies strong incentives to follow them. Although the AIA introduces broader stakeholder consultation via the AI Board and Advisory Forum, participation remains non-binding, allowing large corporations to dominate standard-setting and raising concerns about democratic legitimacy and fundamental rights protection. Under Article 43, conformity assessments verify whether high-risk AI systems meet AIA re- quirements before market entry. Most rely on internal self-assessment; external control is only required in very limited cases. While this reduces administrative burdens, it also risks weakening oversight, transparency, and protection of fundamental rights
Epistemic authority in the digital public sphere. An integrative conceptual framework and research agenda
Full text linkWe develop an integrative conceptual framework and research agenda for studying epistemic authorities in the digital age. Consulting epistemic authorities (e.g., professional experts, well-informed laypeople, technologies) can be an efficient fast-track to knowledge. To fulfill this functional role, those who claim epistemic authority need to be both subjectively recognized (have a perceived advantage in knowledge) and objectively justified (have an actual advantage in knowledge). In a digital media context, new and unconventional knowledge sources have emerged that can fulfill the functional role of epistemic authorities. But false authorities that disseminate misinformation have emerged as well while other sources with important knowledge remain unrecognized. We further analyze the functional role of epistemic intermediaries that can mitigate such problematic developments by correcting false authorities and by providing endorsement for unrecognized authorities. We conclude with a research agenda to study functional forms of epistemic authorities and epistemic intermediaries in the digital public sphere