ALGORITHMIC RESISTANCE IN EUROPE AND THE QUESTION OF COLLECTIVE AGENCY

Abstract

One of the key critical questions of our times is the understanding of how data, algorithmic logics and AI are altering our agency as citizens, and what forms of resistance and opposition are emerging on the ground. Some scholars have shown how algorithms both prohibit as well as aid activists’ agency (Milan, 2018; Treré, 2019; Etter and Albu, 2021), while others have focused on how individual activists challenge the power of algorithms and reclaim a sense of agency (Velkova and Kaun, 2021). Although over the last years much research has emerged on the civic and human rights implications of automated systems and algorithmic profiling, little attention has been paid to what was happening on the ground and how social movement actors were actively organising against algorithmic profiling. In this paper, we draw on ten semi-structured interviews with actors from civil society or non-governmental organisations in Europe, who struggle against algorithmic decision making, and combine these findings with a qualitative textual analysis of ten campaign websites, both conducted in the context of a wider research project exploring the conflict over algorithmic profiling. The aim of the paper is to shed light on the discourses and practices of social movement actors when it comes to resisting algorithmic injustices. The key question that we are interested in addressing is to explore how – in the everyday resistance to algorithmic profiling – actors rely on three different strategies of action (algorithmic literacy, algorithmic regulation and algorithmic accountability).