Digital citizenship: A new proposal for an inclusive future

A stakeholder-led initiative is pushing for a rethink of inclusion in the digital transformation, focusing on the idea of digital citizenship.

In a non-paper, the EU Digital Citizenship Working Group set out five pillars of digital citizenship, recommending policy actions in areas including technology, social engagement, human rights and democratic participation. 

The coalition was formed in late 2020 and finished work on its non-paper, ‘Europeans Fit for the Digital Age’, last year. Its membership spans academia, business and civil society, including organisations such as Facebook’s parent company Meta, the Lisbon Council think tank, the NGO European Youth Forum and the Institute for Media Studies. 

“For many people, words like ‘digital citizenship’ and ‘digital inclusion are just buzzwords,” said Mark Boris Andrijanič, Slovenia’s former digital minister, at an event held in Brussels earlier this month which gathered the working group’s steering committee. However, action is needed to address the fact that increasingly digitalised societies are not equally advantageous for all groups, he urged.

No digital transformation without digital inclusion, MEP says

Europe’s digital transformation cannot move forward without digital inclusion, MEP Franc Bogovič told the Huawei Connect 2022 conference in Paris on Monday (17 October).

The working group similarly emphasises the differential impacts of the digital transition, which also outlines several critical challenges within the EU regarding digital citizenship. 

Aside from inequalities, they also include low quality of citizenship education, the limited reach of technological solutions, too great a dichotomy between on and offline aspects of digital citizenship and slow regulatory movement. 

To address these and others, the group devised five pillars on which a revitalised vision of digital citizenship should stand: digital foundations, digital well-being; digital engagement and media literacy; digital empowerment; and digital opportunities.

Its digital citizenship concept focuses on minimising the possible harms of using these technologies and maximising their potential benefits.

Through the digital empowerment pillar, the working group promotes the idea that digital citizenship should include using the digital space for activism and political engagement, with an understanding of how digitalisation might shape democratic processes. 

A focus on digital well-being is also at the core of the non-paper, with the group backing increased attention to ensuring that users are resilient and can build healthy and constructive online relationships with each other, an area in which they argue the EU is already “ahead of the curve” when it comes to policy focus. 

In terms of digital foundations, the group argues that EU citizens must have strong digital capabilities to facilitate online safety and data protection but that “these foundational skills are lacking at an EU level”.

Brussels has focused on digital skills within its Digital Decade targets, intending to ensure that 80% of the EU’s population has basic digital skills by the end of the decade. However, observers have warned that progress towards this objective is lagging and that a significant ramping up of efforts will be needed if they are to be met. 

Report: Digital Decade targets in jeopardy without scale-up of efforts

A substantial acceleration of digital development is needed if the EU’s Digital Decade targets are to be met, according to a new report that sheds light on the disparity between member states.

The EU’s Digital Education Action Plan is a good start, according to the working group. Still, it adds that digital abilities should be broadened: “Skills should be acquired for life as opposed to work or school alone and should not be limited to formal education.”

Lack of flexibility and coordination within education are key obstacles to progress in this area. However, the non-paper notes under the Digital Opportunities pillar; to address weaknesses, its authors argue that a more holistic and less growth-focused understanding of digital skills and opportunities should be adopted. 

The focus on digital skills comes alongside a push for media literacy and ensuring that the users of technology can evaluate the trustworthiness of online content and identify potential dis- or misinformation. Doing so while maintaining people’s right to free speech, the group says, will require partnerships between digital regulators and platforms. 

Earlier this month, the Commission released a toolkit for educators looking to coach young people in developing skills for online critical thinking, training which will be similarly embedded into the Erasmus+ 2023 work programme. 

EU offers guidelines for schools to boost digital literacy

The European Commission has this week released its guidelines for educators on promoting digital skills and tackling disinformation for use in primary and secondary schools across the EU.

Regarding tackling disinformation, platforms also have a role to play, noted Marisa Jiménez Martín, Director of Public Policy and Deputy Head of EU Affairs at the Brussels office of Meta, one of the organisations that contributed to the non-paper.

She argued that the spread of disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the need for platforms to step up, particularly in areas that governments couldn’t, and become more proactive in addressing these issues within the context of new technologies like the metaverse.

Speaking at the event in Brussels, Giuseppe Alessandro Veltri, a sociology professor at the University of Trento, noted that, while keeping the varied impacts of digitalisation on different groups in mind is essential, it was crucial to remember that everyone is vulnerable to some extent, particularly in the case of issues such as disinformation.

Further research, he argued, is needed to understand the impacts of various regulatory initiatives put forward to empower citizens online and these should not be considered automatic fix-alls to the critical issues of the digital age.

“Empowerment is needed”, he said, “but it’s not the only solution if it’s an alibi for not intervening where people are vulnerable.”

[Edited by Luca Bertuzzi/Nathalie Weatherald]

Read more with Euractiv

EU heavyweight countries' last-minute push for ex-ante checks on online marketplaces

A blocking minority of member states want to mandate online marketplaces to carry out random checks before products are launched, according to a non-paper dated 11 November and obtained by EURACTIV.