Hi everyone,

Please note that there are two seminars in the University of Philosophy Seminar 
Series this week, one on Wednesday Oct 23 and another one on Friday Oct 25.

The speaker for Wednesday’s seminar is Sean Donahue, (ANU)

The title of the talk is "Platform Tyranny, Rule of Law, and Virtual 
Community". Here is an abstract for the talk:

Political philosophers have long been concerned with how to avoid state 
tyranny, the condition of governments having arbitrary power over citizens. A 
standard response is that avoiding tyranny requires making power holders 
conform to rule of law principles, for instance by considering their power 
legitimate only when used according to rules that are public, fairly enforced, 
and meaningfully contestable. Political scientists, economists, and journalists 
meanwhile often claim online platforms are sites of tyranny because of the 
arbitrary power platform owners have over platform users. This raises the 
question: When are state and platform tyranny sufficiently similar that 
platforms must conform to rule of law principles to govern users legitimately? 
I argue the analogy can hold for virtual communities. Given the role some 
virtual communities play in meeting their members’ vital interests, platforms 
must govern these communities according to rule of law principles to be 
legitimate.

The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Oct 23 in the Philosophy 
Seminar Room (N494).

The speaker for Friday’s seminar is James Norton, presenting joint work (James 
Norton, Finnur Dellsén, Tina Firing, (University of Tasmania, University of 
Iceland). Details for Friday’s seminar will be sent out later this week.

Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan....@sydney.edu.au

Ryan Cox
Associate Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan....@sydney.edu.au
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