A Common Platform: Reimagining data and platforms

Voici un rapport (et son résumé) publié début décembre par Common Wealth et The Democracy Collaborative qui semble offrir un excellent tour d'horizon des enjeux entourant l'économie de plateforme ainsi que des principes et pistes d'action à suivre.

Extraits :

(...) a small group of large platform companies—sitting at the heart of the transactions and engagements of the digital, and increasingly, the physical economy—have become the robber barons and rentier giants of our age. Their main focus has become the collection of rent while fending off potential competitors and swatting away regulations and public policies aimed at curtailing their power. Not coincidentally, they are also being linked to numerous negative social, economic, and political outcomes, both independently and in conjunction with the collection and use of data.

These include, but are not limited to:

• Increasing economic inequality and the concentration of economic power, which are inevitable outgrowths of the dominant platforms’ rentier monopoly position
• The steady erosion of social and labor protections and the deployment of new, pernicious forms of social and workplace control
• The deepening of “surveillance capitalism,” in which all aspects of life and society are mined for data that is not only bought and sold, but increasingly used to modify and direct human behavior
• The rise of algorithmic management (and bias), which is hardwiring discriminatory, unfair, and racist outcomes into core features of our economic system
• The undermining of democratic and civil norms through the proliferation of forms of misinformation and manipulation
• The use of tax avoidance/evasion and regulatory arbitrage (e.g. shopping for favorable regulatory environments) by platform companies to boost profits
• Negative environmental impacts, with the digital sphere intimately linked to material landscapes and natural systems.

This report outlines the current political economy of platforms and data in the US and UK, as well as key policies, regulations, and legislation in the areas of antitrust and monopoly power, workers’ rights and protections, online speech, data privacy and control, and financial technology (fintech), among others. It then presents five foundational principles that we believe should guide a transformative agenda related to platforms and data. These are:

• Privacy and anti-surveillance
• From enclosure to the commons
• Global multi-stakeholder governance
• Reducing corporate concentration and power
• Increasing public funding

Building on these principles and the existing political-economic landscape, this report concludes by offering a menu of policies and solutions that we feel can meet the scale and dynamic of the crises posed by today’s data and platform regimes. These include:

• Democratic public ownership of major platforms
• Central bank digital currency and a postal banking system
• A 21st century “New Deal” for workers and unions
• A new multi-stakeholder agency to set the standards and principles for data collection and use
• A network of “data trusts” to provide citizens with access and democratic control over data that can improve their lives
• Public Platform Accelerator (PPA), National Lab for Community Data (NLCD), and Public Digital Cooperatives (PDCs)
• National Investment Bank
• Digital Community Wealth Building

https://democracycollaborative.org/learn/publication/common-platform-reimagining-data-and-platforms?mc_cid=fd7223e9ea&mc_eid=9231454453&fbclid=IwAR0dDNkq2upTm3GSAtpoFqZzuLQiRIIn3G4kPvYwPuXV5RSbTEI19bwicbc