AI Forensics vs. BigTech: „We can have retaliation against us“

Summary

When it comes to enforcing the EU’s digital regulation against social media platforms like X and TikTok, the Commission and national authorities are not alone in collecting the necessary evidence. In many cases, they rely on the work that is done by outside actors, such as AI Forensics. The non-profit organisation analyses and investigates the algorithms that shape the information landscape. Based in Paris, they consider themselves an European organisation, with people working from all across the continent. In an interview with netzpolitik.org, Marc Faddoul, the founder and director of AI Forensics, reflects on the organisation’s experience of working with regulators and points out how the conditions could be improved: by providing flexible funding and legal protection. Contribution behind the scenes netzpolitik.org: We often ask whether the European Commission or the national authorities have enough staff to enforce the Digital Services Act (DSA), but no one ever really mentions contributors like you. I suppose it’s partly because you’re not allowed to talk about all your contributions… Marc Faddoul: In a way I’m sometimes shocked myself. About the role we are given to play in those big scale politics, about how much falls onto civil society. I am not even sure it is really a matter of number of people; it’s more about the specific expertise that is needed to do this job. That is not necessarily the profile that is drawn towards the institutions. And also the methods: We often have to deploy unconventional and adversarial methods to do the work that we do, that is not what the institutions are best at doing. netzpolitik.org: So, let’s start at the beginning. What is it that you do? Marc Faddoul: We’ve done a lot of work on social media recommender systems, because they were, and are still to a large extent, the most influential algorithmic system in shaping the information we consume. We are working increasingly on chatbots, since they are becoming the new gatekeep...