Every swipe, like, and share feeds a billion-euro business built on your data. Platforms track what you look at, how you behave, and how long you stay. Algorithms sort, rank, and push content to keep you scrolling as long as possible.

Together with Dr. Oliver Marsh, digital-policy researcher, you will:

✅understand how social-media and search algorithms capture and hold your attention

✅learn how your behaviour become valuable commercial data for personalised ads and feeds

✅explore the social consequences of this business model

By the end, you will understand how platforms monetise your attention. You’ll walk away with practical strategies to protect your data and navigate online spaces more consciously.

With Dr. Oliver Marsh, digital-policy researcher, who wants to ensure that algorithms and AI do not undermine democracy and human rights but strengthen them.

With the accession of the Baltic countries in 2004 EU and NATO for the first time had a direct border with the successor state of the former Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, as well as member states with a sizable Russian minority population. The Baltic states understandibly considered this accession step a life insurance against Russian attempts to reinstate hegemony over their nations after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the latest starting in 2007 the Russian Federation then made clear that it considered Baltic EU and NATO accession a security threat.

In the years since tensions between EU/Nato and Russia have increased and have reached a new high with Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, and the accession of the formerly neutral countries Sweden and Finland to NATO.

It is in this situation that we have invited Maris Hellrand, a prominent freelance journalist from Tallinn, Estonia, to talk to us about life at a focal point of new EAST-WEST-tension.