The idea for the thesis grew out of Torres Sepulveda's own experiences as an information activist in Mexico. He founded an organisation that worked with marginalised communities, helping them gain political agency and participate in decision-making processes that affected their lives.
‘Although Mexico has strong laws concerning access to public information, I repeatedly encountered resistance when requesting information’, Sepulveda says. ‘Requests could be denied, or the information provided could be of such low quality that it was of little use. These experiences eventually led me to investigate the role of information and data in political participation.’
From open government to data activism
‘Around 2008, open government became increasingly popular’, Sepulveda explains. ‘The idea was that governments would proactively make information available, allowing citizens to use that information to participate in decision-making.’
But Torres Sepulveda noticed that something else was changing at the same time. Data was not only becoming a tool for political participation; it was increasingly becoming an expectation. ‘If you want to become politically active, now increasingly more the expectation is that you provide data as a justification for whatever you're demanding or whatever you want the government to do.’
In other words, citizens are increasingly expected to support their political arguments with evidence. If you want to demonstrate the impact of a policy, challenge a government decision or demand change, having the right data can make your argument more convincing, and potentially more acceptable to institutions.
Sepulveda sees this as a significant change in the way political activism operates. Traditional forms of political participation, such as demonstrations, remain important. But increasingly, another form of activism is gaining legitimacy: data activism. A data activist collects available information, analyses it and presents it as evidence. In doing so, political claims can be presented as something that is supported by facts and evidence.
Raising the bar for participation
This development, however, creates a new problem. If data becomes increasingly important for being heard by institutions, not everyone has the same ability to use it. ‘This change in the demands for what you need to do to be able to participate politically is actually quite problematic because it increases the bar of who can participate’, says Sepulveda. ‘To participate effectively in this increasingly data-driven form of politics, citizens need to know that relevant data exists, where to find it and how to process it. Those are not skills that every citizen possesses.’
According to Sepulveda, this raises an important question about the idea of open government itself. Information may technically be available to everyone, but that does not necessarily mean that everyone is equally capable of using it. Open data can therefore create new opportunities for political participation while simultaneously creating new barriers.
Trust in data
The increasing attention raises the question of why data has become so important in political debate in the first place. According to Torres Sepulveda, one reason is the widespread belief that data is objective. In a world increasingly shaped by datafication, numbers and datasets are often seen as a way of separating facts from opinions and political convictions. ‘There is a strong belief that data are particularly objective. This belief gives data a particular authority. If an argument is supported by numbers, graphs or other forms of evidence, it can appear more neutral and therefore more legitimate.’
But Sepulveda warns that data should not be treated as inherently objective.
‘We know that that is not the case and that data can be extremely biased and that data is also very political. Data is produced, selected and interpreted by people. What is measured, how it is categorised and what conclusions are drawn from it can all involve political choices. Treating data as neutral facts can therefore obscure the decisions and assumptions behind it.’
Consequence of a data-driven world
The discussion becomes even more urgent with the rapid rise of artificial intelligence. Although AI dominates today's technological debate, Torres Sepulveda sees it as closely connected to an older development: the growing role of data in society.
‘AI is just sitting on top of that process of datafication, because for AI to be able to work, it needs massive amounts of data. As a society, we haven’t come fully to terms with the consequences of living in an increasingly data-driven world. Questions about who produces data, who has access to it, how it is used and who benefits from it remain unresolved. Yet, before these questions have been answered, our attention is already shifting towards AI. We are constantly jumping from one problem to another without necessarily solving the issues that we are facing.’