Dear European Commission and Creative Europe representatives,
The ethics of social media platforms and corporate-owned digital tools have become a serious
matter of concern, as the owners of these technologies neglect public interest by scaling down
moderation and fact-checking, by ending DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programmes, and
more generally by running these technologies as their individual property. Also, the sheer fact of
their quasi-monopolistic global market position poses an ongoing issue, especially in the context of
independence and healthy pluralism.
We, cultural and media players who benefit from EU funds, thereby ask the European Commission
and its Creative Europe funding programme, to take these threats into consideration and to take a
leading role in tackling them. We think that encouraging the Creative Europe-funded cultural and
media projects to prioritise independent, open-source, and European digital tools and to diversify their
digital portfolio (for communication, workflow automations, etc.), thus decreasing the influence of tech
giants, is an absolute necessity. To do so and as a first step, we suggest to put in place a new ethical
digital alternatives criteria in the Creative Europe upcoming call for applications.
Digital capitalism, represented by tech giants, has progressively shown its chosen path: the one of
authoritarianism and a so-called freedom of expression made of racist and discriminatory speech.
The progressive deterioration of X under Elon Musk’s governance, recent annoucements on
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta’s moderation policies, the editorial takeover of Jeff Bezos, owner of the
Washington Post and of Amazon, are the most striking recent examples. Defending human and
cultural rights requires an evolution in our common digital presence, and with conscious guidance
and a novel action plan from the European Commission, we can work towards a change that could be
salutary for the day-to-day actions of the culture and media sectors.
As cultural and media players, how independent can we be when we are highly dependent on
such platforms and their biased algorithms, as well as on digital tools whose approach to privacy
and data protection is at least questionable? Also, we think it is an important responsibility of the
European Commission to continuously monitor developments in digital technologies, and engage in
conversation about their ethical implications.
Seizing digital transformations as a compass and as a contemporary issue that needs consideration
and political answers is more than ever unavoidable for European institutions. For this reason,
we demand that programmes financing cultural and media projects, like Creative Europe, shall
encourage and recognise the efforts in project proposals that are actively trying to adjust their
digital practices towards the adoption of fairer, more independent, and Europe-based and led digital
platforms. Similar to the model of the green criteria within various European funding streams–giving
extra points to projects with a virtuous environmental approach–, projects prioritising independent
digital tools, and that move away from tech giants’ influence, shall be awarded (e.g. via extra points)
throughout the evaluation process. By recognising their efforts and commitment to establishing more
ethical digital spaces, European institutions could lead a change in the cultural and media sphere,
spurring its players to act with respect to this critical contemporary matter.
Rethinking the digital practices of European culture and media actors and spaces needs to occur
by involving existing tools and efforts available in the European landscape. Ongoing EU-funded
networks, platforms, cooperation projects, and many other projects and movements, are already
working towards digital solutions respecting pluralism, controlled freedom of expression, and data
protection. Some examples are the NL Net Foundation, the European Alternatives platform, or the
Fediverse of alternative social networking platforms (such as Mastodon). Means to change and offer
digital alternatives to technologies provided by biased tech giants exist, now it is the time to seize
them and encourage European-funded projects to act and adopt them.
It is urgent to take digital practices into more conscious consideration. Digital capitalism is now not
only threatening, as it has been since its inception, but is concretely and shamelessly putting its vision
of an authoritarian, unregulated, and dangerous society, both online and offline, into action. Collective
action, innovative new practices, and taking a firm position is the only answer we, cultural and media
players, can pursue and ask from European institutions.
In this context, we, European cultural and media actors, networks, cooperation projects, and
platforms are asking European institutions to consider this important moment as a shift, and to take
the due action to promote digital independence in the European cultural and media context.
Let’s not miss this opportunity to break out of a digital space that no longer welcomes the values of
independence, pluralism, diversity, and sustainability.
If you, as an individual or an organisation from the cultural and media sphere, want to endorse this
open letter, please click here.
AEC European Association of Conservatoires (Creative Europe network) · Better Live (Creative
Europe cooperation project) · Circostrada (Creative Europe network) · Culture Action Europe
(Creative Europe network) · ECHN European Creative Hubs Network (Creative Europe network) ·
EDN European Dance Development Network (Creative Europe network) · EJN Europe Jazz
Network (Creative Europe network) · EM Guide (Creative Europe cooperation project) · ENCC
European Network of Cultural Centres (Creative Europe network) · Europavox (Creative Europe
cooperation project) · IETM International network for contemporary performing arts (Creative
Europe network) · IN SITU (Creative Europe platform) · Live DMA (Creative Europe network) ·
Michael Culture Association (Creative Europe network) · REMA European Early Music Network
(Creative Europe network) · Reset! network (Creative Europe network) · Slash Transition (Creative
Europe cooperation project) · Sphera Network (Independent media network, co-funded by the DG
Connect) · Sustainable-EEEMERGING (Creative Europe cooperation project) · TMLAB (Creative
Europe cooperation project) · Trans Europe Halles (Creative Europe network)