We take the use of search engines so much for granted in our daily digital lives that we rarely question their design, how they work, and most importantly, the results of our searches. In the early days of the WWW, successful Internet searches were a challenge for experts. Today, however, anyone can get useful hits from a search engine in a matter of seconds. What is behind this: a gigantic effort. Considering the amount of online content that search engines have to systematically collect and interpret for relevance, it is easy to see why there are only a few search engines – and why the effort is worthwhile for them, even though the external service, i.e. the search, appears to be free for users. To understand how search engines work and why the undisputed market leader, Google, is so successful, it is important to look beyond the technical systems to the business models. It is well known that users are not customers in these models, but rather a means to an end. And the taken-for-granted nature of Internet search easily obscures the cultural and political dimensions of the “search engine” complex. What are the consequences of the nature of the search engine market for the quality of search results and the plurality of perspectives on content on the Internet, which is increasingly becoming a reflection of society itself?
Dirk Lewandowski is Professor of Information Research & Information Retrieval at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences and a recognized expert on search engines and their function in the digital society. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the scientist explains how search engines are technically structured, what significance they have for our use of the Internet, and how the business models of their providers interact with the interests of users and producers of Web content. He explains how Google’s market dominance came about, why it is detrimental to good Internet search, and what options are realistic for reviving real competition among search engines. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Lewandowski discusses how the way we all use the Internet affects the design and function of today’s search engines, how generative language models come into play, whether we need a European infrastructure for search engines – and whether we should (re)learn how to search for web content.
Episode 60 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Dirk Lewandowski of Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, 28 January 2025
On October 21 and 22, 2024, the Federal Government’s Digital Summit took place in Frankfurt am Main. eFin & Demokratie was represented with a booth including a new media station and offered opportunities for exchange and information.
At the Digital Summit
21 and 22 October 2024, Market of Digital Opportunities (Level 1 at the Kap Europa), Stand No. 8.
Season 1 of the Digitalgelddickicht approaches the topic of the Digital Euro from as many angles as possible. It tries to understand and explain. With the help of interviewees from academia, representatives of commercial banks and the ECB, civil society and the EU Parliament, it sheds light on as many aspects as possible and adopts different perspectives in a total of 10 episodes.
A chance for all those who are interested in digital finance and who want to take a closer look at the opportunities and problems of a digital euro, the criticism it receives and the hopes that are held for a future central bank digital currency (CBDC).
1.1. The Digital Euro – Our Second Cash?
Digitalgelddickicht Season Digital Euro – Episode 1 (in German) | 27 July 2023
While those countries that have already introduced a central bank digital currency (CBDC) might carry little political weight, also the world’s major economies are discussing and testing their own CBDCs. This episode of Digitalgelddickicht sheds light on the special features of CBDC projects in the USA, Russia and China and asks about their geopolitical potential: What goals are Washington, Moscow and Beijing pursuing with their CBDCs? And are the Digital Dollar, Ruble or Yuan capable of changing the global financial landscape and currency hierarchy? How advanced are the respective CBDC plans and what lessons can the EU learn for the digital euro?
First, the episode examines the US debate regarding a Digital Dollar. How does the dominant role of the US in the international financial market influence the debate on the US CBDC? And how does the global hegemony of the dollar affect the CBDC ambitions of other G20 countries, especially in times of conflict? The digital ruble is part of a package of Russian measures designed to make the Russian payment system more resilient in the face of Western financial sanctions since the occupation of Crimea and, in particular, the war of aggression against Ukraine. As alternative financial infrastructures, CBDCs can offer greater autonomy and bypass established financial links. A look at China’s experiments with the digital yuan shows how it fits into the Chinese payment landscape. In view of China’s growing power, the question arises as to whether and how CBDC pioneers such as China could also gain influence and set standards outside their borders.
Digitalgelddickicht Season Digital Euro – Episode 10 (German only) | 12 September 2024
Guests
Dr. Jiaying Jiang is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. Her research focuses on the policy and regulatory aspects of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, FinTech, blockchain technology, central bank digital currencies and cryptocurrencies. As a Hauser Global Fellow at New York University School of Law from 2020 to 2022, she co-directed a project on central bank digital currencies in partnership with the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School.
Ehlke, Roxana: Alternative Financial Infrastructures in Russia, Preprint Version, forthcoming in: Carola Westermeier, Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn, Barbara Brandl (eds.): The Cambridge Companion to Financial Infrastructure .
We use space for our lives on Earth. The expansion of digital infrastructures on the earth’s surface also means that more and more technical objects are being transported into space. Navigation without GPS is nowadays almost unimaginable. Telephone services and weather apps also use space technology – and the data streams in an internet of the future will probably no longer be routed mainly through long cables, but by means of constellations of thousands of satellites arranged around the globe. In the meantime, however, our planet is being orbited mainly by remnants of broken space technology, which are massively obstructing the increasingly dense traffic of important probes and satellites. It is an unintended consequence of human space travel that space debris actually jeopardises the future use of space. Added to this is the “weather” in space: digital infrastructures that ensure the security of systems on Earth are also increasingly affected by this. Who takes care of these problems? And how can we ensure that space flight can continue to supply the digital society with satellites?
Dr Holger Krag heads the ESA Space Safety Programme at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), which also deals with space debris and space weather. In this episode of “Digitalgespräch“, the expert describes the scene around our globe and describes how the challenges facing space travel have changed in recent decades, particularly as a result of the digital transformation. He names strategies for dealing with new safety risks and regulatory requirements, describes technical solutions and open research questions. Together with hosts Petra Gehring and Marlene Görger, Krag discusses whether the global political situation also poses a threat to space travel safety, what influence private players have on the development of space travel and what is at stake if the current problems cannot be solved.
Episode 54 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Holger Krag of the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), 13 August 2024
Over 90% of all countries in the world are discussing the introduction of a CBDC. And almost half of them are actually working on it: over 80 countries are in a development, pilot or launch phase. However, in the media discussion of the digital euro, projects by other countries to issue digital central bank money (CBDC) are rarely discussed. Often little is known. Very few have actually introduced a CBDC so far: The Bahamas’ Sand Dollar was officially launched in October 2020 and the Nigerian eNaira in October 2021.
In the first of two episodes on non-European CBDC projects, the podcast Digitalgelddickicht focuses on these two. What prompted a small island state in the Caribbean and the most populous country in Africa to introduce a CBDC? What are their motivations and what are their experiences to date? What can CBDCs do in countries where people have limited access to banks and many do not have bank accounts? Are Sand Dollar and eNaira well received by citizens or retailers? What problems are there? What was discussed, negotiated and legislated before their introduction?
Digitalgelddickicht Season Digital Euro -Episode 9 | 5 August 2024 (German only)
■ Porter, Shaqueno (Central Bank of The Bahamas): An Update on the Sand Dollar (Youtube), Digital Euro Association Conference (DEC24), Frankfurt/Main, 29 February 2024.
■ Branch, Sharon, Ward, Linsey and Wright, Allan: The Evolution of SandDollar, in: Intereconomics. Review of European Economic Policy,Vol. 58 (2023), No. 4, pp. 178 – 184.
He writes for German and European media on digital regulation, infrastructure and surveillance. He regularly reports for netzpolitik.org and Tagesspiegel Background. He has lived in Brussels since 2023 and observes developments in the European Union up close, whether in the Parliament, the Council or the Commission.
Project
At ZEVEDI, Maximilian focuses on the digital euro. In a series of articles, he wants to analyse who wants what from this major project. What is the EU planning, what is the ECB planning? What demands are banks or payment service providers putting forward, what are the positions of the various EU member states on the digital euro? Just as the project itself has largely flown under the radar so far, little is known about the actual interests different players have.
On September 16, 2023, a Market for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge under the title Follow the Money – Of Analogue Values, Digital Currencies and the Quantification of the World was staged in Frankfurt/Main. This was a project by the Mobile Academy Berlin, produced by Künstler:innenhaus Mousonturm in cooperation with ZEVEDI. In 1:1 conversations with visitors – and audible via event radio – around 90 experts followed the traces of money on a large scale, on a small scale and in their own lives. All information about the film is also available here as a booklet (German only).
The video documents excerpts from 8 of these 192 conversations, in which perspectives on digital payment are discussed: The conversations revolve around the social significance of cash and the restrictions on digital payments. Other discuss the digital euro, a central bank currency that is supposed to function digitally but in a similar way to cash. Crypto assets such as Bitcoin and technologies such as blockchain play a roleas well. All of it sheds light onto the “digital money jungle” in which we find ourselves as individuals, but also as a society. For an overview of what else is happening, see the eFin-Blogpost Ein Markt des nützlichen Wissens und Nicht-Wissens (German only).
The experts in order of their appearance and with selected contributions to the topic:
Brett Scott is a former broker and now a publicist and cash activist. He is the author of the newsletter Altered States of Monetary Consciousness and the book Cloudmoney – Cash, Card or Crypto: Why the War on Cash Endangers Our Freedom (2022).
Jana Ringwald is a senior public prosecutor at the Central Office for Combating Cybercrime (ZIT) of the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in Frankfurt/Main. The video interviews by artist Rainer Lind (German only) provide an insight into her work.
Alexandra Keiner is a sociologist and researcher at the Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin. In an interview entitledOf Frozen Accounts and Unequal Conditions in International Payment Transactions (German only), she talks about her research on “payment bans on the internet” and about her experience and conversations during the Market for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge.
Claus George is Head of Digitalization and Innovation at DZ Bank. His lecture Digital payments – yesterday, today, tomorrow (German only), which he gave in April 2022 as part of the series Understanding Crypto! at TU Darmstadt, is available as a video recording.
Dr. Gerald Nestler is an artist and author who deals with the topic of finance, among other things. For his projects, texts and lectures see here.
Jürgen Geuter is known as a critic of crypto assets, among other things. For current blog posts and a selection of publications and presentations, see his online presence here.
Suggested citation:
Igel, Sophia/Scholtysik, Philipp: Follow the [New] Money. Auf den Spuren von Krypto, Karten, Coins und Cash. Darmstadt: Zentrum verantwortungsbewusste Digitalisierung, 2024, Video 16:42 Minuten, online: https://zevedi.de/film-follow-the-new-money/.
eFin & Democracy invites an interdisciplinary panel of experts twice a year. The meetings offer an independent place to reflect on issues regarding the sociopolitical aspects of digital change in the financial sector. Its aim is a well-informed and critical exchange that brings together not only academic, but also relevant positions from financial market-related, cultural and journalistic practice. Civic engagement, digital political democratization, orientation towards the common good and a sense of responsibility form the horizon in which the considerations and activities of “Money – Technology – Democracy” are located.
The panel currently consists of the following members:
Dr. Martin Diehl (Analyst for financial market infrastructures at the Deutsche Bundesbank)
Prof. Dr. Petra Gehring (Professor of Philosophy at TU Darmstadt, Scientific Director of ZEVEDI (Centre for Responsible Digitality) and Head of the “eFin & Democracy” discourse project)
Johannes Kuhn (journalist in the Berlin studio of Deutschlandfunk with a focus on digitalization policy)
Prof. Dr. Aaron Sahr (Research Group Monetary Sovereignty at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research and Visiting Professor at the Institute for Sociology and Cultural Organization at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg)
Prof. Dr. Daniel Tyradellis (Humboldt Forum Endowed Professorship for the Theory and Practice of Interdisciplinary Curating, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media; Vice Director of the Hermann von Helmholtz Centre for Cultural Technology at HU Berlin)
Following a constituent meeting on March 14/15, 2023 at the Forum Humanwissenschaften, Bad Homburg, the group met for discussions on October 5/6, 2023 at the Darmstadt Wasserturm (photo). On April 12, 2024, it met at the Helmholtz Center for Cultural Technology at the HU Berlin.
It was decided to focus first on the digital euro. With the introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the eurozone currently in preparation, technological issues relating to the specific design of the new money converge with the question of how aspects of “democracy” are affected. The panel of experts has therefore decided to first look at the digital euro, also with regard to a (public) infrastructure for digital payment transactions and the associated transparency and comprehensibility of the introduction process for citizens, which is absolutely essential. The panel will develop ideas for relevant features of the digital euro. It will also discuss ways of communicatively supporting the political-administrative process beyond conventional communication formats.
In the Citizen Lectures, scientists and experts are asked to provide insights into their specialist field, impart basic knowledge and make suggestions for a broader discussion. Their audience includes TU Darmstadt students as well as a broader interested public. All lectures are also available online as videos. The following lecture series have been held so far:
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