The combination of digital technology and the Internet infrastructure resulted in a medium with huge democratic potential. Adding up new architectural features, the Internet enables multidirectional communication, instant response, expanded possibilities of discourse and debate.
Nevertheless, such potential can considerably diminish, depending on how technology layers on top of the infrastructure are built, permitting more or less actions by users and depending on the criteria of accessing and filtering content and discourses by its algorithm.
In the process of enhancing political engagement by citizens through new technologies, in the wake of what has been called “e-democracy” or “digital democracy” , we must deepen the debate on how this potential is being affected by what Ugo Pagallo calls “techno-regulation”.
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