Empowering European Digital Citizenship

As we write in ‘Continue Change’, our 2025-2029 strategic plan, we need defending democracy in the Digital Age. Europe is increasingly shaped by the digital world, and this presents both opportunities and risks. We are all too familiar with the threats: misinformation, online hate speech, and the erosion of democratic norms in the digital space. These issues don’t just undermine individual countries; they pose a real threat to Europe as a whole. That’s why digital citizenship is a central pillar of our strategy. We are working to promote critical thinking, digital literacy, and responsible online engagement. The digital space can be a force for good, but only if we equip people with the tools to navigate it responsibly

We champion a cultural approach to online engagement in a world shaped by misinformation and digital divides. Through workshops, creative campaigns, and educational tools, ECF supports (young) Europeans in responsibly navigating and shaping digital spaces. These efforts promote critical thinking, foster meaningful dialogue, and safeguard democratic values, ensuring Europe’s digital future reflects its cultural diversity.

That is why we support PublicSpaces.

PublicSpaces is a coalition of more than 40 public – mostly media organizations with an extensive reach. They are committed to creating an alternative digital ecosystem that serves the common good – free from dependence of Big Tech and based on public values: open, transparent, responsible, sovereign, and user-centric.
Their annual PublicSpaces conference has become a leading event in the field of digital public space. As part of our Digital Citizenship programme’s mapping of important developments and initiatives in this domain across Europe, ECF is the main supporter of the conference.

This year’s conference theme is ‘Shaping our Digital Future’ and includes keynotes, panels, workshops and artistic and cultural performances and installations. With our support, the conference highlights European digital initiatives that contribute to enhancing digital governance and digital citizenship across Europe and boost the development of an alternative digital ecosystem based on European public values. 

With supporting the conference ECF wants to contribute to deeper discussions and better connections between European policymakers, tech experts and civic leaders, on existing vulnerabilities and potential solutions for the European digital domain and most importantly, for its users in it and a more advanced European digital citizenship.  Will you join us?

We will host two sessions:

Traditional governments find themselves increasingly outmatched by technology tycoons and autocratic strongmen: geopolitical predators who shape the world through brute force, deception, and disruption. Across the continent people are working on initiatives for citizens to take back control. They are imagining new ways of living together by reflecting on the concepts of democracy and citizenship. If we want our digital world to be an extension of the world we would like to live, we need designing digital realms that reflect those concepts. In this session we bring some European initiatives working on alternatives together. Some of them directly work on technological alternatives, some of them on the issue of inclusivity, some of them play with existing code. On stage we will explore how they challenge Big Tech in their own way.

Speakers include Julia Vernersson, Hostwriter; Matteo Bergamini, Shout Out UK!

Big Tech’s quest to corral and monetise online attention has seen them become the media landscape’s ‘invisible hand’, quietly shaping the character of news and terms on which independent media organisations exist. This has eroded journalism informed by public values, assisting the spread of misinformation, polarisation and extreme views. Independent media organisations are now struggling to breathe. On the one hand — by enabling influencers’ creatorfication of news — Big Tech systematically squashes the status and importance of journalism, while on the other — through auto-summarisation, the application of AI-generated content and encouraging polarised reaction — Big Tech also finds new ways to squeeze the value of independent media from where it still exists. This roundtable will explore how independent media can thrive without relying on Big Tech—by focusing on sustainable audience engagement, innovative approaches to news delivery, business capacity building, and the sharing of best practices. 

Speakers include Joe Elborn, Evens Foundation; Claudio Cesarano, Civitates; Marie Kreil, Prototype Fund; Peter Edelyi, Center for Sustainable Media; Konrad Bleyer-Simon, European University Institute; Valentine Charles, Europeana; Vladimir Radinovic, Community Media Forum Europe; Slawek Blichiewicz, Display Europe; Matthias Pfeffer, Council for European Public Space; Sander van der Waal, Waag Futurelab.