The World Bank estimates that over one billion people currently lack official identity documents. To tackle this crucial issue, the United Nations included the aim to provide legal identity for all by 2030 among the Sustainable Development Goals. Technology can be a powerful tool to reach this target. In the digital age, new technologies increasingly mediate identity verification and identification of individuals. Currently, State-led and public–private initiatives use technology to provide official identification, to control and secure external borders, and (...) to distribute humanitarian aid to populations in need. All of these initiatives have profound implications for the protection of human rights of those affected by them. Digital identity technologies may render individuals without legal documentation more visible and therefore less vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. However, they also present risks for the protection of individuals' human rights. As they build on personal data for identification and identity verification, data protection and privacy rights are most clearly affected. The prohibition of discrimination in the digital space is also of concern as these technological advances' societal impact is not yet fully understood. Accordingly, the article argues that emerging digital identity platforms will only contribute to the protection of human rights if the providers adequately mitigate any risks of potential discrimination and promote high standards of privacy and data protection. (shrink)

Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical identity theory requires modification when theorising about presentations of self on social media. This chapter contributes to these efforts, refining a conception of digital identities by differentiating them from ‘corporatised identities’. Armed with this new distinction, I ultimately argue that social media platforms’ production of corporatised identities undermines their users’ autonomy and digital well-being. This follows from the disentanglement of several commonly conflated concepts. Firstly, I distinguish two kinds of presentation of self (...) that I collectively refer to as ‘expressions of digital identity’. These digital performances (boyd 2007) and digital artefacts (Hogan 2010) are distinct, but often confused. Secondly, I contend this confusion results in the subsequent conflation of corporatised identities – poor approximations of actual digital identities, inferred and extrapolated by algorithms from individuals’ expressions of digital identity – with digital identities proper. Finally, and to demonstrate the normative implications of these clarifications, I utilise MacKenzie’s (2014, 2019) interpretation of relational autonomy to propose that designing social media sites around the production of corporatised identities, at the expense of encouraging genuine performances of digital identities, has undermined multiple dimensions of this vital liberal value. In particular, the pluralistic range of authentic preferences that should structure flourishing human lives are being flattened and replaced by commercial, consumerist preferences. For these reasons, amongst others, I contend that digital identities should once again come to drive individuals’ actions on social media sites. Only upon doing so can individuals’ autonomy, and control over their digital identities, be rendered compatible with social media. (shrink)

This special issue seeks to problematize the role of digital technologies in the constitution of the self, taking up the phenomenological premise that experiential structures are shaped and renegotiated through interactions between subjects, environments, and the manipulation of both real and fictional objects. The articles herein address the effects of digital technologies on the human self and, conversely, the active, open, and plastic ways that the self experiences and shapes the digital w...

Identification technologies like biometrics have long been associated with securitisation, coercion and surveillance but have also, in recent years, become constitutive of a politics of empowerment, particularly in contexts of international aid. Aid organisations tend to see digital identification technologies as tools of recognition and inclusion rather than oppressive forms of monitoring, tracking and top-down control. In addition, practices that many critical scholars describe as aiding surveillance are often experienced differently by humanitarian subjects. This commentary examines the fraught questions (...) this raises for scholars of international aid, surveillance studies and critical data studies. We put forward a research agenda that tackles head-on how critical theories of data and society can better account for the ambivalent dynamics of ‘power over’ and ‘power to’ that digital aid interventions instantiate. (shrink)

Digital technology has prompted philosophers to rethink some of the fundamental categories we use to make sense of the world and ourselves. Particularly, the concept of ‘identity’ and its reconfiguration in the digital age has sparked much debate in this regard. While many studies have addressed the impact of the digital on personal and social identities, the concept of ‘collective identity’ has been remarkably absent in such inquiries. In this article, I take the context of social (...) movements as an entry point to discuss the reconfiguration of collective identity in social media environments. I do so by introducing a narrative approach to collective identity. I argue that Twitter’s affordances invite new ways of constructing collective identities and imply a shifting relationship between the individual and the collective. (shrink)

New technological developments have fundamentally transformed human life. Throughout this process, fundamental questions about human beings have once again been posed. The paper examines how technological change affects understandings of human beings and their bodies, thereby requiring new approaches to anthropology. First, Section 2 illustrates how the use of technology has changed the understanding of human beings and their bodies. A new connection between the human being or the body and technology has emerged. Section 3 then moves onto considering the (...) increasing blurring of the boundaries between organisms and machines, showing how the understanding of humans and bodies is constantly being renegotiated in relation to machines. Based on this, Section 4 explores how the understanding of the human being and the body can be redesigned in the context of modern technology. To this end, approaches for a contemporary anthropology can be derived from critical posthumanism. Section 5 addresses concrete practice and examines the construction of identity in social media platforms such as Instagram. The paper argues that technological processes and social media are places where theology is constructed and appeals for a responsible theological co-creation of these places. It advocates that technology offers the opportunity to question traditional anthropological concepts and to renegotiate understandings of the human being and the body. -- Puzio, Anna: Digital and Technological Identities – In Whose Image? A philosophical-theological approach to identity construction in social media and technology. In: Cursor (2021). (shrink)

The extensive use of digital platforms has presented considerable challenges to democracy, particularly in the realms of politics and ideology in Brazil. The emergence of digital echo chambers and the rise of extreme viewpoints pose threats to social cohesion, informed decision-making, and the development of individual identities. This analysis focuses specifically on identity formation, the creation and dissemination of information, emphasizing its repercussions on social identity and cultural diversity. Consequently, the influence of these echo chambers in promoting (...) extremist views in this context is just one facet of the broader ideological, racial, and class polarization facing the nation. To face these challenges, it is imperative to defend critical and reflective education on the role and use of social networks, both in the educational system and in the daily lives of young people and society. (shrink)

The first aim is to provide well-articulated concepts by thinking through elementary phenomena of today s world, focusing on privacy and the digital, to clarify who we are in the cyberworld hence a phenomenology of digital whoness. The second aim is to engage critically, hermeneutically with older and current literature on privacy, including in today s emerging cyberworld. Phenomenological results include concepts of i) self-identity through interplay with the world, ii) personal privacy in contradistinction to the privacy of (...) private property, iii) the cyberworld as an artificial, digital dimension in order to discuss iv) what freedom in the cyberworld can mean, whilst not neglecting v) intercultural aspects and vi) the EU context.". (shrink)

Introduction. Regardless of the perturbations and transformations of the external, a person realizes himself and presents himself to others in the direction of the so-called subjectivity. The topic of subjectivity, including the social identity of the subject, is widely represented in modern academic discourses. However, already in the first decade of the XXI century in the context of social and humanitarian reflections on the subject, the idea of the so-called digital subject was raised. In comparison with its biosociocultural counterpart, (...) the digital subject occupies a specific position, a position between the real world of physical objects and the information space. Therefore, reflections on the social identity of a modern person are brought into the digital space, into those of its variants where the digital subject “dwells” and creates narratives about himself. The definitions of “social identity” and “digital subject” proposed in the article will be taken as basic. The purpose of the article is to identify and analyze the key variants of social identity that are presented today in the Internet. Methods. The study is based on general scientific methods, analysis and synthesis, induction, deduction, abstraction. The analysis of variants of social identity in the Internet was carried out primarily on the basis of content analysis, the method of interpretation and a systematic approach. Scientific novelty of the study. The article presents options for designing social identity in the digital space, e-mail and instant messengers, contextual advertising, social networks; the specifics of designing in each of the named options are analyzed. Results. The exposition of options for designing social identity on digital material opens up a spectrum of different forms of being a subject in the Internet. To the greatest extent, these forms are associated with the communicative nature of a person. Increasingly, the social subject is turning to digital communication options, which include instant messengers, social networks and e-mail. It seems that in the 21st century, when the Internet has its own specific signs, including emoji, the so-called literacy qualification, the ability to communicate via the Internet, is available to anyone. At the same time, the real subject not only leaves its unique imprint on the network; the information he receives from the Internet leaves its mark on his decisions, in a series of diverse elections, from a grocery store to a political leader. Conclusion. In modern academic reflections on the specifics of human existence in the Internet, the idea of a digital subject has taken shape. In the discourses of domestic and foreign researchers, the digital subject is usually represented as a prefabricated construct. It has a connection with the real subject and social groups, but its origin is ideological. According to its purpose, it carries some idea that inclines the real subject to make just such a decision, not another. Hence, digital research acquires epistemological value, more precisely, the search and analysis of options through which a person realizes his identity in the network. (shrink)

This edited volume is designed to explore different perspectives of culture, identity and social development using the impact of the digital age as a common thread, aiming at interdisciplinary audiences. Cases of communities and individuals using new technology as a tool to preserve and explore their cultural heritage alongside new media as a source for social orientation ranging from language acquisition to health-related issues will be covered. Therefore, aspects such as Art and Cultural Studies, Media and Communication, Behavioral Science, (...) Psychology, Philosophy and innovative approaches used by creative individuals are included. From the Aboriginal tribes of Australia, to the Maoris of New Zealand, to the mystical teachings of Sufi brotherhoods, the significance of the oral and written traditions and their current relation to online activities shall be discussed in the opening article. The book continues with a closer look at obesity awareness support groups and their impact on social media, Facebook usage in language learning context, smartphone addiction and internet dependency, as well as online media reporting of controversial ethical issues. The Digital progress has already left its dominating mark as the world entered the 21st century. Without a doubt, as technology continues its ascent, society will be faced with new and altering values in an effort to catch-up with this extraordinary Digitization, adapt satisfactorily in order to utilize these strong developments in everyday life. (shrink)

Usual narratives among prehistoric archaeologists consider typological approaches as part of a past and outdated episode in the history of research, subsequently replaced by technological, functional, chemical, and cognitive approaches. From a historical and conceptual perspective, this paper addresses several limits of these narratives, which (1) assume a linear, exclusive, and additive conception of scientific change, neglecting the persistence of typological problems; (2) reduce collective developments to personal work (e.g. the “Bordes’” and “Laplace’s” methods in France); and (3) presuppose the (...) coherence and identity of these “methods” over time. It explores the case of the “Structural and analytical typology” method, developed in France, Spain, and Italy from the 1950s to the 2000s by Georges Laplace and his collaborators for lithic implements. This paper (1) provides a detailed historical account of the evolving content of this collective endeavour over five decades; (2) it addresses the epistemological question of what makes the identity and unity of a scientific method, demonstrating that the core component of the “analytical typology” lies in its particular way to represent real-world phenomena through its notation system; and (3) it reveals how this little known but significant episode of advances in the methods and theory of archaeology, contemporary but independent of the “New Archaeology” trend in English-speaking archaeology, was instrumental in the continuation of evolutionary perspectives in France and in the development of quantitative and formal methods in archaeology in southwestern Europe, foreseeing crucial knowledge representation issues raised today by digital methods in archaeology and data curation. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo refletir sobre as modificações cognitivas e identitárias nos/dos sujeitos da sociedade digital – denominados aqui de sujeitos imersivos, no sentido proposto por Lucia Santaella. Para tanto, considera-se a hipótese de que a compreensão de conceitos como ciberespaço, cibercultura e virtualização exige, antecipadamente, o resgate do sentido de termos como virtual, real, realidade e atualidade. O marco teórico destaca principalmente os argumentos apresentados por Pierre Lévy e Giles Deleuze. Parte-se do questionamento da fronteira entre mente (...) e corpo, entre real e virtual. Posteriormente, são identificadas algumas mudanças provocadas pela virtualização e seus efeitos nos espaços escolares. Os procedimentos metodológicos são demarcados pela abordagem qualitativa com amparo na pesquisa bibliográfica. Os resultados indicam a emergência de um novo sujeito de aprendizagem com processos cognitivos distintos e novas demandas sociais. Estas condições impõem um redimensionamento dos saberes e atitudes dos professores e dos especialistas em educação. Os apontamentos finais sugerem a necessidade de intensificação dos estudos acerca da virtualização da sociedade contemporânea a fim de compreender as características identitárias dos sujeitos imersivos. Palavras-chave : Virtual e real. Virtualização. Ciberespaço e cibercultura. Modificações cognitivas e identitárias. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore an overlooked aspect of deep-fake technology, specifically its application as a protective tool for concealing the identities of targeted individuals or whistleblowers. Since its emergence in 2017, deep-fakes have been intertwined with various sociotechnical imaginaries. Traditionally, deep-fake technology has been portrayed as a potential threat to privacy and a weapon for disseminating false information, evident from its definitions which emphasize its deceptive nature and malicious use. Moreover, the origins of deepfakes, such as the creation (...) and online distribution of altered pornographic material with harmful intentions, further reinforce this perception. As a result of blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction, truth and falsehood, these synthetic media forms not only pose a risk of disinformation and deception but also offer unexplored avenues for creative expression. Thus, this study examines deep-fake technology as a form of ‘digital camouflage’ by analyzing its usage in David France’s documentary film _Welcome to Chechnya_ (2020). The argument presented in this paper suggests that this illustration challenges the dominant narrative surrounding deep-fakes and highlights an ethical and potentially positive application of this technology. (shrink)

In 1965, John A. Pope presented a paper entitled 'Two-Dimensional Chart of Quantum Chemistry' to illustrate the inverse relationship between the sophistication of computational methods and the size of molecules under study. This chart, later called the 'hyperbola of quantum chemistry', succinctly summarized the growing tension between the proponents of two different approaches to computation–the ab initio method and semiempirical method–in the early years of electronic digital computers. Examining the development of quantum chemistry after World War II, I focus (...) on the role of computers in shaping disciplinary identity. The availability of high-speed computers in the early 1950s attracted much attention from quantum chemists, and their community took shape through a series of conferences and personal networking. However, this emerging community soon encountered the problem of communication between groups that differed in the degree of reliance they placed on computers. I show the complexity of interactions between computing technology and a scientific discipline, in terms of both forming and splitting the community of quantum chemistry. (shrink)

The digital is deeply transforming reality. Through discussion of concepts such as identity, location, presence, law and territoriality, this article explores why and how these transformations are occurring, and highlights the importance of having a design and a plan for our new digital world.

It is not understood how the numbers and identities of vertebrae are controlled during mammalian development. The remarkable robustness and conservation of segmental numbers may suggest the digital nature of the underlying process. The study proposes a mechanism that allows cells to obtain and store the segmental information in digital form, and to produce a pattern of chromatin accessibility that in turn regulates Hox gene expression specific to the metameric segment. The model requires that a regulatory element (...) be present such that the number of occurrences of the motif between two consecutive Hox genes equals the number of segments under the control of the anterior gene. This is true for the recently discovered hydroxyl radical cleavage 3bp-periodic (HRC3) motif, associated with histone modifications and developmental genes. The finding not only allows the correct prediction of the numbers of segments using only sequence information, but also resolves the 40-year-old enigma of the function of temporal and spatial collinearity of Hox genes. The logic of the mechanism is illustrated in the attached animated video. How different aspects of the proposed mechanism can be tested experimentally is also discussed. (shrink)

Digital pictures can be type-identical in respect of colours, shapes and sizes (allographic), but they are not tokens of notational systems, because the types under which they are identical have vague limits and do not meet the requirements for notational characters. Digital display devices are designed to instantiate only limited ranges of objective properties (light intensities, sizes and shapes). Those ranges keep differences in objective magnitudes below sensory discrimination thresholds, and thus define objective conditions sufficient, but not necessary, (...) for the phenomenal type-identity of pictures. The fact that digital pictures are types shows that pictures are not necessarily autographic. Moreover, the reasons why digital pictures are allographic (essentially, the consistent manipulation of sub-phenomenal information) could in principle also be made to apply to non-digital pictures. (shrink)

We live in the digital age where our sense of self and identity has moved beyond the body to encompass hardware and software. Cyborgs, online representations in social media, avatars, and virtual reality extend our notion of what it means to be human. This approachable book looks at the progression of self from the biological to the technological using a multidisciplinary approach. It examines the notion of personhood from philosophical, psychological, neuroscience, robotics, and artificial intelligence perspectives, showing how the (...) interface between bodies, brains, and technology can give rise to new forms of human identity. Jay Friedenberg presents the content in an organized and easy-to-understand fashion to facilitate learning. A gifted researcher, author, and classroom teacher, he is one of the most influential voices in the field of artificial psychology. (shrink)

Social media is full of dead people. Untold millions of dead users haunt the online world where we increasingly live our lives. What do we do with all these digital souls? Can we simply delete them, or do they have a right to persist? Philosophers have been almost entirely silent on the topic, despite their perennial focus on death as a unique dimension of human existence. Until now. -/- Drawing on ongoing philosophical debates, Digital Souls claims that the (...) digital dead are objects that should be treated with loving regard and that we have a moral duty towards. Modern technology helps them to persist in various ways, while also making them vulnerable to new forms of exploitation and abuse. This provocative book explores a range of questions about the nature of death, identity, grief, the moral status of digital remains and the threat posed by AI-driven avatars of dead people. In the digital era, it seems we must all re-learn how to live with the dead. (shrink)

Ethical leadership can lead to preparing the ground for employee voice, highlighting employees’ creativity, and encouraging knowledge-sharing behavior in the organization. Thus, this study examines the impact of ethical leadership on organizational identity with the mediating role of employee voice in digital startups. However, previous studies investigating the relationship between ethical leadership and organizational identity disregarded the intervening role of employee voice in this relationship. A cross-sectional design using a sample of 137 managers of digital startups in science (...) parks. Through the PLS3 software, the results show that employees tend to discuss their work-related opinions and concerns more often if they consider their leaders trustworthy, and this can lead to competitive advantage and quick responses to environmental crises. According to the findings of this study, ethical leadership can prepare the ground for employee voice, highlight employees’ creativity, and encourage knowledge-sharing behavior in the organization. Hence, we suggest that leaders demonstrate personal integrity, openly receive employees’ ideas and recommendations, treat employees impartially, and attempt to maximize the benefits to their employees. (shrink)

Review of: Lisenkova A. A. Transformations of socio-cultural identity in the digital space: a monograph. – Perm: PGIK Publ., 2021. 286 p. ISBN978-5-91201-355-3 (in Russian)).

This paper presents an attempt to analyse the growth of conflict in the context of globalization processes of the XXI century, in particular the clash of cultural and social identities. The development of digital technologies has provoked an increased array of information flows, which bring disorienting sentiments to society. This resulted in the spread of such social phenomena as “echo chamber” and gaslighting. Conflict of identities is a response to the collapse of a unified society. Purpose and (...) objectives of the paper. The objective is to conduct a socio-philosophical analysis of identity as a conflict-causing phenomenon in the globalized digital age, based on the achievements of modern science and philosophy. Methodology of Research. The main research methods are structural-functional, philosophico-cultural and philosophico-anthropological. The principle “from abstract to concrete” and the principle of systemicity were applied to solve specific research tasks. Research results. On the one hand, modern globalization processes allow the interaction of previously distant or even mutually exclusive cultures, patterns of behaviour, or identities. On the other hand, there is a clash of previously separated and relatively closed cultural, civilizational groups, which becomes a catalyst in forming a completely new (or hybrid) identity and advocating existing identification values, where the alternative reality is perceived as a threat of losing the uniqueness or value of the heritage of generations. As a result, there is a conflict of identities at both the individual and social levels. Conclusion.The globalization processes of the XXI century are penetrating more and more actively into all spheres of social life: there is a clash of cultural and social identities, which provokes increasing conflict levels and grouping to preserve uniqueness in response to global trends, the establishment of new social norms and expansion of human rights. The world is in a state of formation, constant change, and the understanding of the described trends features and their mechanisms reveals their contradictory phenomena “echo chamber”, gaslighting etc. “Otherness” has become an integral feature of today and in our opinion, the search for practices of mutual understanding is becoming another cultural challenge. (shrink)

My question in this paper is whether digital technologies transform humanity and make politics impossible. Digital technologies, no doubt, are revolutionary. But I argue that what they have done in the Post-Cold War era are: (1) to further contract the spaces between politicians and the people; (2) transform actors from subjects to objects, such that we may in addition to social identities, talk about digital identities; (3) relocate the public sphere from squares to ilosphere where (...) individuals are granted enormous expressive powers but at the same time become vulnerable to large scale manipulations; (4) and escalate the tools of politics. My argument will be that digital technologies in a subtle way are transforming humanity in the digital space and that this might have costly moral consequences not only in politics generally but specifically in liberal democracy. However, I will contend that this transformation of humanity does not make politics impossible; it only escalates it with troubling consequences like those we saw in the 2016 American presidential election. (shrink)

In Third Digital Documentary: A Theory and Practice of Transmedia Arts Activism, Critical Design and Ethics Anita Chang offers a theory and methodology of transmedia arts activism within the technocultural and sociopolitical landscape of expanded documentary production, distribution, reception and participation. Through a detailed analysis of her transmedia project on indigenous and minority language endangerment and revival that consists of the feature-length documentary Tongues of Heaven, and the companion web application Root Tongue: Sharing Stories of Language Identity and Revival, (...) she reveals the layers and depths that comprise a critical arts practice when confronted with complex sociopolitical issues while working with multiple communities across territorial/national boundaries. In the context of the growing field of transmedia documentaries, Chang discusses the potentials and benefits of a critical design practice and production ethics that can transform this field to pilot new collaborations in documentary and digital media platforms towards a third digital documentary. (shrink)

In this article, the author deals with the status of the self and personal identity in the digital milieu. In the first section, he presents his general approach to digital media and technologies, which he has called “digital hermeneutics”. He distinguishes between three perspectives in digital hermeneutics, namely the deconstructive, epistemological, and ontological approaches. In the second part, he focuses on digital hermeneutics as hermeneutics of the self. He compares Paul Ricoeur’s narrative identity to Pierre (...) Bourdieu’s habitus. His first thesis is that the habitus can be seen as a concept of subjectivation that neglects an important part of the subject. Narrative identity offers, in this sense, a remedy to such negligence. His second thesis is that today’s digital media and technologies are closer to the Bourdieusian habitus than to the Ricoeurian narrative identity. In other words, digital machines and technologies are “habitus machines” both in their structure and in their effects. In the conclusion, the author accounts for three potential responses to the habituation of our selves online. He also introduces the concepts of “digital agency” and “digital citizenship”. (shrink)

This paper explores the political potential of digital failure as a refusal to work in service of today’s dataveillance society. Moving beyond criticisms of flawed digital systems, this paper traces the moments of digital failure that seek to break, rather than fix, existing systems. Instead, digital failure is characterized by pesky data that sneaks through the cracks of digital capitalism and dissipates into the unproductive; it supports run-away data prone to misidentifications by digital marketers, (...) coders, and content moderators; and it celebrates data predisposed to “back-talk” with playful irreverence toward those that seek to bring order through normative categorization and moderation. I call these data entropic, fugitive, and queer and explore their mischievous practices through three case studies: the unaccountable data in identity resolution, public shaming of the ImageNet training data, and reading practices of sex worker and influencer, @Charlieshe. Together these case studies articulate the political potential of digital failure as a process of unbecoming the good data subject by pushing past the margins of legibility, knowability, and thinkability, to reveal what is made illegible, unknowable, and unthinkable to data’s seeing eye. As predictive analytics, automated decision-systems, and artificial intelligence take on increasingly central roles in public governance, digital failure reveals how data itself is a flawed concept prone to political abuse and social engineering to protect the interests of the powerful, while keeping those marginalized over-surveilled and underrepresented. (shrink)

This paper considers an emerging practice whereby citizen’s use of ubiquitous and domesticated technologies enable a parallel form of criminal justice. Here, weaponised visibility supersedes police intervention as an appropriate response. Digital vigilantism is a user-led violation of privacy that not only transcends online/offline distinctions but also complicates relations of visibility and control between police and the public. This paper develops a theoretically nuanced and empirically grounded understanding of digital vigilantism in order to advance a research agenda in (...) this area of study. In addition to literature on vigilantism and citizen-led violence, this paper draws from key works in surveillance as well as visibility studies, 914–934, 2010) in order to situate how digital media affordances and cultures inform both the moral and organisational dimensions of digital vigilantism. Digital vigilantism is a process where citizens are collectively offended by other citizen activity, and coordinate retaliation on mobile devices and social platforms. The offending acts range from mild breaches of social protocol to terrorist acts and participation in riots. The vigilantism includes, but is not limited to a ‘naming and shaming’ type of visibility, where the target’s home address, work details and other highly sensitive details are published on a public site, followed by online as well as embodied harassment. The visibility produced through digital vigilantism is unwanted, intense and enduring. Such campaigns also further a merging of digital and physical spaces through the reproduction of localised and nationalist identities on global digital platforms as an impetus for privacy violations and breaches of fundamental rights. (shrink)

We address an argument by Floridi (Synthese 168(1):151–178, 2009; 2011a), to the effect that digital and analogue are not features of reality, only of modes of presentation of reality. One can therefore have an informational ontology, like Floridi’s Informational Structural Realism, without commitment to a supposedly digital or analogue world. After introducing the topic in Sect. 1, in Sect. 2 we explain what the proposition expressed by the title of our paper means. In Sect. 3, we describe Floridi’s (...) argument. In the following three sections, we raise three difficulties for it, (i) an objection from intuitions: Floridi’s view is not supported by the intuitions embedded in the scientific views he exploits (Sect. 4); (ii) an objection from mereology: the view is incompatible with the world’s having parts (Sect. 5); (iii) an objection from counting: the view entails that the question of how many things there are doesn’t make sense (Sect. 6). In Sect. 7, we outline two possible ways out for Floridi’s position. Such ways out involve tampering with the logical properties of identity, and this may be bothersome enough. Thus, Floridi’s modus ponens will be our (and most ontologists’) modus tollens. (shrink)

The phenomenon of digital differentiation, or stark variations in ability to access Internet hardware and/or infrastructure, has been a feature of provision since its early days. This article explores the impact of digital differentiation on two groups of young people, in England and Germany. It is based on fieldwork that took place during the academic year 2018-2019, just before the global pandemic threw the issue of equality of Internet access into sharp relief. The article begins by describing the (...) empirical design of the My Life Online project, including background, sampling, instruments, ethical aspects and the initial data analysis approach taken to ensure reliability and validity. It then develops a further analysis drawing on Halford and Savage’s hybrid Bourdieu/Actor Network Theory model (2010) to map out the socio-technical network surrounding the young people in our study. In this way we identify areas of change and conflict that compound existing social deprivation. We conclude by making a case for a better education policy awareness of the key issues, and more equitable distribution of national infrastructure moving forwards. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in finding stronger means of securitising identity against the various risks presented by the mobile globalised world. Biometric technology has featured quite prominently on the policy and security agenda of many countries. It is being promoted as the solution du jour for protecting and managing the uniqueness of identity in order to combat identity theft and fraud, crime and terrorism, illegal work and employment, and to efficiently govern various domains and services (...) including asylum, immigration and social welfare. In this paper, I shall interrogate the ways in which biometrics is about the uniqueness of identity and what kind of identity biometrics is concerned with. I argue that in posing such questions at the outset, we can start delimiting the distinctive bioethical stakes of biometrics beyond the all-too-familiar concerns of privacy, data protection and the like. I take cue mostly from Cavarero’s Arendt-inspired distinction between the “what” and the “who” elements of a person, and from Ricoeur’s distinction between the “idem” and “ipse” versions of identity. By engaging with these philosophical distinctions and concepts, and with particular reference to the example of asylum policy, I seek to examine and emphasise an important ethical issue pertaining to the practice of biometric identification. This issue relates mainly to the paradigmatic shift from the biographical story (which for so long has been the means by which an asylum application is assessed) to bio-digital samples (that are now the basis for managing and controlling the identities of asylum applicants). The purging of identity from its narrative dimension lies at the core of biometric technology’s overzealous aspiration to accuracy, precision and objectivity, and raises one of the most pressing bioethical questions vis-à-vis the realm of identification. (shrink)

This paper argues in favor of a hybrid conception of identity. A common conception of identity in datafied society is a split between a digital self and a real self, which has resulted in concepts such as the data double, algorithmic identity, and data shadows. These data-identity metaphors have played a significant role in the conception of informational privacy as control over information—the control of or restricted access to your digital identity. Through analyses of various data-identity metaphors as (...) well as philosophical accounts of identity, we argue in favor of a hybrid conception of identity that emphasizes the relations between the ‘real’ and the ‘digital’. A hybrid conception of identity—where the digital is an aspect on par with social relations, self-understanding, and values—ultimately calls for an understanding of privacy as the right to influence one’s own identity. (shrink)

Most of the existing studies on Bourdieu and the digital regards the social and class distinctions in the use of digital technologies, thus presupposing a certain transparency of technologies themselves. Our proposal is to refer to this attitude as “Bourdieu outside the digital.” Yet in this paper, another perspective called “Bourdieu inside the digital” is developed, which moves the focus on the effects of some emerging technologies on social distinctions and discrimination. The main hypothesis is that (...) algorithms of machine learning are producers and reproducers of habitus. Although their results present a greater granularity with respect to the standard techniques of the past, these algorithms still reduce individuals to categories, general trends, classes, and behaviors. Such a reduction has flattening effects on the individuals’ self-understanding, especially in terms of identity and interaction with the social world. This is the phenomenon described in the article as the “personalization without personality,” whose consequences are both existential and social-political. This idea will be illustrated through qualitative and comparative analysis between the correspondence analysis and the multiple correspondence analysis used by Bourdieu in his works and some of those techniques that are performed today in big data analytics. (shrink)

The paper explores the semiotic and legal semiotic perspectives related to posthumous digital face. In doing so, the contribution also seeks to explore the complex relationship between AI-generated faces, including deep fakes, mourning, and posthumous rights. The article has five parts. In the introduction, we discuss the challenges of _posthumous existence_ and the issues related to respecting the deceased. We also examine some examples of ‘digital personhood’. In part two, we present three case studies and use semiotics to (...) help us distinguish between _posthumous existence_ and _digital resurrection_. In part three, we provide a semiotic classification of representation in the context of digital faces and our case studies. We suggest that there is a difference between the _phenomenological presence_ of a hologram and the _cognitive value_ of recreating someone’s identity, including their biography, face, and voice. In part four, we explore the topic of digital spectra and mourning, including the concept of _imputability_. In part five, we analyse how the law offers new insights into the ontology of the face of the deceased and posthumous existence in hologram form. In the conclusion, we summarise the article’s key findings and highlight open issues and potential future developments. (shrink)

My principal concern in this paper is to determine how fundamental are the implications, for the moving image as a medium for works of art, of the loss of indexicality consequent upon the move from a photochemical medium to a computational medium. I begin by examining the bearing of indexicality on the status of still images as photographs, or as photographic art. I then consider whether, where indexicality is lost through the use of digital technology, this has the same (...) significance for still and for moving images. I argue that indexicality does not have the significance for cinema that some have claimed, and that the loss of indexicality does not affect in any essential way the identity of cinema. (shrink)

The Internet speaks about our historical way of understanding the world. The nowadays technology is co-constitutive to society. Consequently, all communication takes the form of a technological-mediated-communication, as in the ending years of mo- dernity all ‘reality’ was taking the form of a written text. For this reason, the ethics of communication has to consider its roots in order to be capable to deal with the ethical problems of computer-mediated-communication. I tried to show that digital communication is rooted in (...) the affectedness (Befindlichkeit) of the human being, in his mores. That ground does not require a stable subject, but the character, the embodiment, and the historicity of the user. The ethics is thus an ethics an embodied experience, of user way of being, and of a historical involvement. I try in this paper to disclose the principles that should underlie an ethics of digital communication. (shrink)

Nothing seems as certain as death. However, what if life continues digitally after death? Companies and initiatives such as Amazon, Storyfile, Here After AI, Forever Identity and LifeNaut are dedicated to precisely this objective: using avatars, records, and other digital content of the deceased, they strive to enable a digital continuation of life. The deceased live on digitally, and at times, these can even appear very much alive-perhaps too alive? This article explores the ethical implications of these technologies, (...) commonly known as Death Tech. With the advancement of artificial intelligence, Death Tech will inevitably transform mourning practices, our perception of death, and how we cope with its reality in the coming years. In this article, it is demonstrated that Death Tech can contribute to individual grief support, education, and a vibrant culture of remembrance. However, it is crucial to recognise that the Digital Afterlife is not a paradise but necessitates active designing and ethical deliberation. (shrink)

The rapid growth of the Russian Internet offers great advantages, especially for geographical and cultural peripheries. Nevertheless, the locational inequality in Internet usage within the country has not yet been bridged. Meanwhile, some Russian villagers living in the countryside have started to ‘blog back’ to the metropolitan centres. How is the Russian village represented in these accounts by digital’nye derevenščiki ? What power relations are characteristic of villagers and townspeople, as they meet in online forums and blogs? The case (...) studies presented in this essay show that, although the traditional dichotomist opposition between centre and periphery has undergone substantial redefinition, the significance of these concepts as value-loaded, culturally coded discursive entities still prevails. The manifestation of hybrid identities, explored in recent research on transnational diasporic communities, has not yet affected the rather static conceptions of core and periphery at work within Russian borders and on the Russian Internet. (shrink)

Indigenous communities have always cultivated social studies learning that is interactive, dynamic, and integrated with traditional knowledges. To confront the assimilative and deculturalizing education that accompanied European settlement of the Americas, Montana has adopted Indian Education for All (IEFA). This case study evaluates the Digital Storywork Partnership (DSP), which strives to advance the goals of IEFA within and beyond the social studies classroom through community-centered research and filmmaking. Results demonstrate the potential for DSP projects to advance culturally revitalizing education, (...) community connectedness, and identity-development. The DSP offers a model for social studies education that is not only culturally affirming and revitalizing for Indigenous communities, but also holds potential for use in all communities. We conclude with recommendations for educators, scholars, and community members engaged in similar efforts. (shrink)

What could a social-justice oriented, feminist data studies look like? The current datalogical turn foregrounds the digital datafication of everyday life, increasing algorithmic processing and data as an emergent regime of power/knowledge. Scholars celebrate the politics of big data knowledge production for its omnipotent objectivity or dismiss it outright as data fundamentalism that may lead to methodological genocide. In this feminist and postcolonial intervention into gender-, race- and geography-blind ‘big data’ ideologies, I call for ethical, anti-oppressive digital data-driven (...) research in the social sciences and humanities. I argue that a reflexive data scholarship can emerge from the reintegration of feminist and postcolonial science studies and ethics of care ideals. Although it is not a panacea for all ails of data mining, I offer a road map for an alternative data-analysis practice that is more power-sensitive and accountable. By incorporating a people-centric and context-aware perspective that acknowledges relationships of dependency, reflects on temptations, and scrutinises benefits and harm, an ‘asymmetrically reciprocal’ (Young, 1997) research encounter may be achieved. I bring this perspective to bear on experiences of a two-year research project with eighty-four young Londoners on digital identities and living in a highly diverse city. I align awareness of uneven relations of power and knowledge with the messy relation of dependency between human and non-human actors in data analysis. This framework productively recognises that digital data cannot be expected to speak for itself, that data do not emerge from a vacuum, and that isolated data patterns cannot be the end-goal of a situated and reflexive research endeavor. Data-driven research, in turn, shows the urgency for renewed feminist ethical reflection on how digital mediation impacts upon responsibility, intersectional power relations, human subjectivity and the autonomy of research participants over their own data. (shrink)

Digital persona is a part of the individual identity that has been extended into the online sphere to which corresponds a digital unconscious structuring a digitally divided self. It has personal, social, institutional, legal, scientific and technological aspects that have to be reconsidered to allow for new ways of understanding and managing identity. However, the fragmentation of scientific analysis fails to explain what happens to the digital personae in an interdisciplinary way. This is reflected by the current (...) lack of comprehensive framework, the tendency to develop fragmentary management tools and gaps in legal frameworks. In this context society, experts, institutions and groups are still in a fragile unconscious, or pre-conscious phase, regarding the opportunities and problems associated with the management of digital persona. The objective of this article is to offer a first set of comprehensive features that shape the personal and social sense of digital selfhood and identity and provoke a reflection regarding the future personal, social and institutional management of our digital personae. This on-going research aims at contributing to define the digital persona and to develop models and typologies of digital personhood that are still being developed. (shrink)

We are currently witnessing the emergence of new forms of collective identities and a redefinition of the old ones through networked digital interactions, and these can be explicitly measured and analyzed. We distinguish between three major trends on the development of the concept of identity in the social realm: (1) an essentialist sense (based on conditions and properties shared by members of a group), (2) a representational or ideational sense (based on the application of categories by oneself or (...) others), and (3) a relational and interactional sense (based on interaction processes between actors and their environments). The interactional approach aligns with current empirical and methodological progress in social network analysis. Moreover, it has been argued that, within the network society, the notion of collective identity (Melucci, 1995) in the political field must be rethought as technologically mediated and interactive. We suggest that collective identities should be understood as recurrent, cohesive, and coordinated communicative interaction networks. We here propose that such identities can be depicted by: (a) mapping and filtering a relevant interaction network, (b) delimiting a set of communities, (c) determining the strongly connected component(s) of such communities (the core identity) in a directed graph, and (d) defining the identity audiences and sources within the community. This technical graph–theoretical characterization is explained and justified in... (shrink)

The AI and Society discourse has previously drawn attention to the ways that digital systems embody the values of the technology development community from which they emerge through the development and deployment process. Research shows how this effect leads to a particular treatment of gender in computer systems development, a treatment which lags far behind the rich understanding of gender that social studies scholarship reveals and people across society experience. Many people do not relate to the narrow binary gender (...) options of male or female, and many people express their gender identity in much richer ways than the sex/gender binary female/woman and male/man Boolean terms will allow. We ask: are “born-digital” gendered datasets in digital systems experienced as marginalising by those who express their identity beyond the male/female binary? Case Study: Ireland. To answer this universal question, this paper presents the findings of an empirical case study of people in Ireland with diverse gender identities and expressions, and their experiences with public data systems and new technologies. In spite of great social changes in Ireland which have led to constitutional change in favour of LGBTQI + people, born-digital systems were experienced by respondents as embodying socio-cultural values which were no longer accepted in society at large. For many of the respondents, digital technologies routinely marginalise them in all kinds of ways. These systems keep alive violence and oppression long after civil rights have been enshrined in constitutional law. This study is just one example of the way assumptions about digital are disengaged from society-at-large. It is a call to arms to all who are passionate about socially-responsible technology. (shrink)

Hip hop artists are early adopters of digital media in the township areas of Grahamstown. This article describes the emergence of particular media ecologies that depend on a do-it-yourself ethic where young people are always ‘hustling’ to get hold of data bundles, software and computer parts, and assembling them in novel ways. This mobile-first generation are increasingly adopting desktop and laptop computers to supplement their media production, and could provide insights into the evolution of low-income digital media practices (...) and the transition from mobile-only to mobile-first (computer-second) practices, as well as how the computer’s increased affordances for production influence such digital media practices. Living in backyard shacks made from corrugated iron and mud, where there are makeshift electrical connections criss-crossing the roof and no flowing water inside, here there is indeed Internet connectivity, although exclusively through the mobile phone. These hip hop artists are supported by various digital service providers, such as WAP-site designers who hack together sites that function both to promote and distribute local media as well as pirated content, to backyard computer repairers who cannibalize parts from discarded old PCs to create workable township machines. This article will provide a digital ethnography of these young people and how they work collectively to record and mix music, design posters, album covers and avatars, and then distribute these through their phones via Bluetooth and online social media. The article will tie these digital practices to the identity formation of these young people, who resist ­succumbing to the despair of unemployment through embracing notions of themselves as artists, hustlers and ‘explorers of technology’, identities they attribute to the local culture of hip hop music production and its values of consciousness, creativity and resilience. (shrink)