10:00-12:30
Teatro Verdi – Sala Titta Ruffo
Moderator: Barbara Carfagna
Speaker: Dino Pedreschi, Giuseppe Martinico, Walter Quattrociocchi, Vesselin Popov, Dino Amenduni
Detecting the present, predicting and conditioning the future: all this is possible thanks to the increasing pervasiveness of digital technologies together with the exponential growth of computing speed. The continuous monitoring of the Net allows us to find and process the enormous mass of information that we all produce on a daily basis. The value of the collected data is so great that specialized companies compete for them at high cost not only as a business model, but as a new form of power. In fact, data and algorithms allow us to influence processes on a global scale: they express opinions on professionals, restaurants, teachers and students, grant or deny loans, evaluate workers, influence voters, monitor our health.
10:00-10:30 // KEYNOTE SPEECH
The datacrazia (datocracy) made simple
Speaker: Dino Pedreschi
10:30-11:00 // KEYNOTE SPEECH
How Brexit…
Speaker: Giuseppe Martinico
More than two years have passed since the vote of 23 June 2018, and even today uncertainty reigns supreme over the future of relations between the United Kingdom and the European Union. During the discussion, we will be thinking about the dangerous consequences of populist information campaigns (and of populism in general) on the functioning of constitutional democracies. As we shall see, populism and constitutionalism live in a complex relationship in the era of illiberal democracies. Populism feeds on some categories of constitutionalism (constituent power, majority, democracy) creating authentic counter-narratives. In the political construction of the “majorities” the instrumental use of data is fundamental, as is shown precisely by the British case. Starting from the view of the majority as “artificial” and from Cass Sunstein’s considerations made in his book “On Rumours”, we will try to frame the phenomenon in a critical way.
11:00-11:30 // KEYNOTE SPEECH
How I can predict fake news
Speaker: Walter Quattrociocchi
The tons of data that we leave on the Internet and the application of data science has allowed us to study social dynamics at an unprecedented level of precision, creating many interesting debates including the role of interdisciplinarity, the dissemination of information and mega conspiracy of “fake news”.
11:30-12:30 // CONVERSATION
Datacrazia and broadcasting: the perfect combination to influence the public
Speaker: Vesselin Popov, Dino Amenduni