Data, Power, Control – Digital Science Between Resilience and Restriction
Date & time
Thursday, 3 July 2025, 4 p.m.
Venue
Einstein Center Digital Future
Conference room, 1st floor
Wilhelmstr. 67
10117 Berlin
Organiser
Einstein Center Digital Future
Language
Please contact organiser for further details
Childcare
Available from 3:30 – 7 p.m.
Please indicate your childcare needs by 23 June 2025 on the registration form
Registration
Register here
Further information
The ECDF Gender and Diversity Network invites participants to engage in a discussion on political influences on (digital) research and academic freedom.
Digital infrastructures for the collection, processing, and publication of scientific and official data are increasingly subject to political interference. Authoritarian government practices reveal how access to data is controlled, altered, or deleted – with the aim of steering societal narratives and erasing critical knowledge. Control over data thus becomes a key instrument of power, shaping how public information can be accessed, interpreted, and reused. This is currently evident in the United States, where content related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has been systematically removed or revised on federal agency websites – including health information about LGBTQ+ communities and intersectional research findings. Datasets and tools that highlight structural inequalities – such as the EPA’s environmental justice tool EJScreen – have been deactivated. At the same time, historical narratives are being rewritten, for example, by erasing queer perspectives from accounts of the Stonewall Riots. In response, civil society and academic initiatives are securing endangered data and making them independently accessible – a form of digital resilience against authoritarian erasure practices.
