Regulating the Digital Sphere

As policy struggles to keep pace, what do emerging regulations mean for platforms and everyday users?

For the final conversation in the series, artist and human rights researcher Caroline Sinders will be joined by technology policy analyst Aparna Surendra and writer and activist Jilian C. York to explore the current effectiveness of technological regulation and what this means for the general population making sense of these policies in their everyday lives.

With regulation of online platforms changing significantly in recent years through the introduction of EU Digital Services Act (2022), the UK Online Safety Act (2023) and the Online Criminal Harms Act (2023) in Singapore, the panel will explore these shifts and discuss platform accountability and the future of digital governance.

York is a researcher in technology and policy, platform accountability, and freedom of expression online. Surendra is a manager at AWO Agency, a law firm and consultancy that empowers individuals and organisations to uphold data rights and effect change in data protection and digital policy.

The panel will consider what a human rights-based approach to platform regulation and content governance could look like.

This three-part online series responds to The Last X Years, a digital project by Jay Bernard. Between 2021–2024, Bernard travelled across the UK, collecting reflections on the 2016 EU referendum. Combined with AI-selected historical headlines, these interviews formed an evolving broadcast, exploring the visible and invisible forces shaping our political and emotional lives.