Public Interest Infrastructure: Digital Alternatives in Our Data-driven World and Journalism's Role Getting There

"Digital infrastructures are crucial to the work and survival of independent media, but existing infrastructures pose a serious threat to press freedom, access to information and democracy."

This report, published by International Media Support (IMS), examines why digital infrastructures are crucial to the work and survival of independent media, particularly in Majority World countries, and why the current infrastructures are a serious threat to press freedom, access to information, and democracy. It also presents examples and recommendations that could inspire and contribute to the creation of alternative public interest infrastructure and explains why media is a crucial actor to include in these processes. The report includes two in-depth case studies from Myanmar that show how digital infrastructures often are the determining factor for access to information and the distribution of quality journalism on the ground.

Digital infrastructure, according to the report, includes "the search engines, social media platforms, app stores, undersea cables and more that define, enable and limit our digital realities, including the amount of attention spent consuming disinformation versus quality journalism". Public interest infrastructure is defined as "a set of digital tools that intentionally serves the public interest and digital spaces that operate with norms and affordances designed around a set of public interest values. They are explicitly designed to inform members of the public about the issues that shape their lives in ways which serve the public's rather than any political, commercial or factional interest. Public interest infrastructures can be commercial, public service or community infrastructure. Public interest infrastructure encourages and informs public debate and dialogue across society, it enables journalists and others to hold those in power to account. Therefore, public interest infrastructures are built to be inclusive, diverse and non-discriminatory as well as open, transparent, accountable and user centric, and they give users full control over their personal data, their content and interactions."

Following a discussion on what public interest infrastructure is, the report looks at the current challenges facing digital infrastructures and identifies the need for a holistic approach that enables an understanding of and strategies to alter infrastructures. It makes the point that "if we want to ensure infrastructures that serve independent journalism and other areas of public interest in local communities, they must be examined at all levels from apps and algorithms to physical cables in the ground." The discussion is based on a range of interviews and public events with leading journalists and tech experts, including IMS partners, from around the world.

Acknowledging the fact that the public interest is best understood and deliberated in the local context, the report looks at the example of Myanmar to analyse the advantages and dangers of current digital infrastructures, particularly in relation to social media and messaging tools. It discusses the developments and social impacts related to the digital infrastructure in Myanmar, which in recent times has returned from an emerging democracy to a military state. The analysis presents both the goods and evils of some of the world's most popular social media platforms that have taken dominant roles as owners, providers, and moderators of the digital infrastructures in many countries.

Building on academic research, the report also looks at who controls the internet in Myanmar by presenting a mapping and analysis of the ownership and control of Myanmar's digital infrastructure, from cell towers and undersea cables to apps. It highlights how control of digital infrastructure has consequences for local media and the public because they can be used as technical censorship mechanisms. The researchers, for example, conclude that the military in Myanmar is in a prime position to turn the country into a digital dictatorship.

In the last chapter, the report analyses and proposes what steps independent media, the media development community, global and local communities, governments, and donors can take towards creating digital infrastructures that better serve the public interest locally and globally. The discussion highlights solutions that the IMS deems to be innovative, which include, for example: local, slow-moving social media platforms such as Front Porch Forum (FPF) in the United States; Digital Power Wash, a tool to measure the public interest value of an organisation's current and future tech procurements; and Public Spaces, a Dutch coalition of public organisations working to reclaim the internet as a force for the common good. The report calls on stakeholders to set a vision that: is anchored locally (with local knowledge, local ownership, local partners, local coalitions, and local innovation); is grounded in a human-rights-based and intersectional approach; and involves building coalitions and communities of local stakeholders, including media, the media development community, other civil society organisations like women's and minority rights organisations, museums, public institutions, universities, tech companies, and others with a commitment to the public interest and open digital spaces.

The report concludes with a number of specific recommendations for stakeholders. For example, the media development community should, with an optimistic and realistic view of what is possible in the local context, engage in and support coalitions of organisations that show a clear and identifiable interest in developing and scaling technological solutions that serve the public interest. Independent media should utilise the skills of investigative and data journalism to report on the powers that benefit from disinformation and other defining problems with current digital infrastructures. Public and private donors should make it a condition to grantees that public interest infrastructure values, such as user-centric data governance, are criteria, along with classic criteria such as price, technical functionality, and climate impact, in all grantees' tech procurement and use.