Digital Platforms

Digital solidarity and the sharing economy may seem like natural companions. To be sure, the sharing economy with its melding of community and commerce has the potential to be a key contributor to digital solidarity in developing economies. Both concepts revolve around the idea of collaboration, sharing resources and funds, community-building, the network effect, increasing trust between strangers, and the leveraging of digital technologies for the greater good. In this blog post, we consider how the sharing economy can contribute to digital solidarity in a developing economy; the barriers to the sharing economy doing so; and if unchecked how it can distort an economy. On that basis, we seek to propose a tentative legal policy for developing economies.

Despite such threats, (digital) solidarity against injustice is being formed incrementally across the globe. Our contribution aims to shed light upon digital solidarity as a space where multiple imaginaries are formed and where some visions emerge as dominant, whilst others are invisiblised. In other words, we ask: has the MSF movement brought about adequate awareness of the current situation that torments Iranian women, or are the photos themselves distracting us from truly recognising the historical trends that have led to the build-ups of structural injustices over time? How are the systemic injustices that trigger the claim to different rights through digital solidarity articulated in framing the narrative and process of meaning-making?

The Global Transformations and Governance Challenges Initiative at Leiden University announces a new call for papers for an interdisciplinary workshop on:

The Promise and Perils of Human Rights for Governing Digital Platforms

In the recent past, discussion on the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) has intensified. As the discourse continues, the extent to which competition agencies in the Global South are regulating digital markets has received limited visibility. This is despite competition agencies such as India Competition Commission and the Competition Commission of South Africa having undertaken tremendous steps in the regulation of digital markets.

On August 23, 2018, Sebastián Piñera, president of Chile, with the general support of all political actors, sent to the Congress a Bill proposing a new tax, on the supply of digital services rendered by digital platforms. This Bill was introduced with a general objective, included in its title, to “modernize the Chilean tax system, intending to incorporate the best practices observed at the international level, as well as taking care of the challenges and particularities that technological advances imply, such as the digital and collaborative economy”.

Multi-sided music platforms are part of the digital creative economy consisting of the various aspects and processes through which creative works are made/produced, distributed and used. In this reflective post, I will discuss the questions posed in the book talk and panel discussion I organised titled “The Digital Creative Economy in Africa: Copyright, Law and Policy”.

According to Professor Caroline Ncube in the foreword, this book is an important and timely contribution to the discussion of music platforms and is the first work that considers multi-sided platforms from the perspectives of copyright, competition and privacy under South African and Nigerian laws.

The Competition Authority of Botswana, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa and the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development are honoured to host the 5th Annual Competition and Economic Regulation (ACER) Week, Southern Africa.