Gathering our thoughts

In a follow-on from Digital Humanism's Open Letter, Erich Prem, President of the Association of Digital Humanism and Co-ordinator of the European Digital Humanism Initiative EUDHIT presented the petition to the Petitions Committee (PETI) of the European Parliament on July 16. The video of that presentation is here and worth a look.

Digital Humanism presented the Open Letter on Wednesday 16 July 2025 — DIGHUM

In it, Erich makes a pledge that the signatories of the letter will support the reviews of the Digital Decade. As part of the EUDHIT project, we in the Digital Enlightenment Forum are leading a co-lab on Democracy & Diversity in this very digital and emerging AI age. To be honest, we are struggling with finding the boundary of our conversation. There are too many distractions, warnings, existential threats, too often and chasing each other too rapidly for us to be able to steady ourselves to focus.

Just breathe.

We refer, time and again, to the Digital Decade, a north star for digital transformation of the EU, and in particular we look at the most recent review, 2025 State of the Digital Decade package | Shaping Europe’s digital future.

From the report:

7.      The report highlights also urgent societal challenges linked to digitalisation in the EU. While technology advances, digital transformation has intensified vulnerabilities and inequalities, especially affecting minors and mental health. A major concern is information integrity, with 88% of Europeans expressing concern about fake news and online manipulation, and 90% seeing the protection of children online as a critical priority. These risks, amplified by AI and online platforms, threaten to undermine democratic integrity, deepen societal polarisation and erode public trust.

Democracy in action

For the Commission to fail to STRONGLY uphold and commit to the current and emerging EU regulations and laws governing our digital lives, given the opinions of the 88% and 90% quoted above, is to refuse to listen to the express and realistic concerns of its own citizens.

We, the signatories of this letter, pledge to work with like minded concerned citizens and national, as well as international organizations to support the EU in taking the strong and united stand that we propose. This pledge extends to all institutions and countries striving to defend and preserve shared humanistic and democratic values, and to ensure that digital technology advances are put to the best possible use for the well- being of humanity

As a project group, we are not only gathering our thoughts, we are gathering examples of hope and resistance to roll backs from around Europe and the world. Just this week Australia introduced the first social media account ownership ban for under 16s. This year, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties launched the first ever class action against Microsoft "bring its systems into compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)." There's work to be done, but there seem to be many people willing to help, so that's a hopeful sign.