Retrospect: Vienna Citizen Lab 2025
Free Speech or Free-for-All? Tackling Hate, Misinformation and Polarisation in the Age of AI and Tech-Oligarchs
In the face of rising online hate, misinformation and polarisation, one thing is clear: democratic, pluralistic digital spaces must be deliberately designed – not passively endured.
Today’s digital platform design plays a central role in shaping public opinion, but it is increasingly dominated by non-transparent algorithms, emotional amplification, and powerful tech companies that operate with minimal public oversight. Far-right and authoritarian forces exploit these systems by using AI-generated disinformation, conspiracy networks, and coordinated digital attacks to erode trust in democratic institutions. These dynamics disproportionately affect marginalised communities in public discourse, including religious minorities and racialised groups. The sharp rise in antisemitism and anti-Muslim racism online demonstrates how hate can spread rapidly with little accountability, threatening not only individual safety, but also the very fabric of democratic society. As an interreligious-worldview platform, and in collaboration with our partners from the EU-funded TWON project, we recognise the urgent need to defend pluralism – especially in spaces where it is most under threat. This requires interdisciplinary collaboration, critical digital literacy, and the political will to rethink how online spaces are governed – because, as Dr. Jonas Fegert (FZI) aptly noted, “democratic backsliding cannot be separated from technologies and platforms. Platform mechanisms and algorithmic rankings have contributed to the intensification of societal conflicts”.
Through interactive workshops, panels and discussions, the programme brought together voices from religious communities, civil society, academia, the tech industry and the activist community to critically examine mechanisms of speech governance and platform design. Key topics included content moderation, freedom of expression, hate speech and misinformation. But participants didn’t merely analyse problems; they co-developed strategies for making digital discourse spaces more inclusive, accountable, and democratic.
A key focus was on how platform business models, driven by content-ranking algorithms and advertising systems, amplify polarisation and silence marginalised voices. This sparked debate democratic oversight, user representation, and stronger public-interest obligations for tech companies and policymakers. Participants also discussed the potential of digital tools to strengthen digital literacy, support remembrance, and counter hate through education and storytelling.
The programme concluded with a public event that explored the challenges of free speech and platform responsibility in the digital age. A panel of European experts in political science, machine learning and public policy examined how legal, ethical and technological frameworks must evolve in order to combat disinformation while preserving open discourse. A second panel then moved on to discuss the practical implications of hate speech and disinformation on social trust and minority safety. Researchers, educators and activists shared strategies based on education, remembrance and community action, emphasising that defending democracy requires everyday civic resilience and inclusive dialogue as well as regulation.
As a key output of the Citizen Lab, participants are collaboratively developing a policy brief that brings together insights and strategies from across the event, offering concrete recommendations for more transparent, inclusive and democratic digital governance.
The Citizen Lab made one thing clear: platform accountability is not a technical issue alone – it is deeply political, ethical, and social. Participants saw that shared digital solidarity can strengthen communities, but also recognised that the spaces for such connection are increasingly under threat. What is needed to strengthen digital democracy is a societal and political commitment to inclusive, democratic digital spaces – spaces that resist polarisation and amplify marginalised voices rather than silence them. This demands not only better regulation, but a fundamental rethinking of how we govern and shape our shared digital environments and to put pressure on the tech companies and the governments to regulate platform design.
For detailed information on the workshops and the workshop leaders and panellists, please find the programme attached.
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Next Steps
Coalition for Pluralistic Public Discourse
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Foto Credits: Andreas Daniel Jakob