Which search engine do you use? Are you concerned about data protection? Do you know your search engine footprint?
These three introductory questions kicked off the hybrid panel discussion on the topic of “Open Search – Europe’s Next Generation Internet Search” at the Basecamp in Berlin, hosted by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digitalization in cooperation with the Open Search Foundation (OSF) on 22 June 2022. The panel discussion was moderated by State Secretary for Digitalization Stefan Muhle, who discussed with Dr. Stefan Voigt (OSF) and Prof. Melanie Platz (Saarland University and also OSF), as well as with the audience connected on site and online, what an internet search of the next generation could look like and why European values are the key to independent European digital sovereignty and economy.
For Internet users, search engines are the gateway to almost all services and offers on the Internet. However, these platform operators are all dependent on one or more of the four major search engine operators and their global internet indices, in which websites are cataloged and categorized. As a result, these are the gatekeepers for the selection and provision of all content on the internet and therefore have a significant influence on the type of content and how it is displayed to individual users, according to the panel participants. A free and independent orientation and navigation in the digital space is therefore de facto not given, especially since none of the index offers are localized in the European economic area. It was also argued that this circumstance creates an immense potential for intentional or unintentional manipulation in access to information and knowledge and thus hinders pluralism of opinion and diversity of information as important cornerstones of democracy and general digital participation.
The Open Search movement is therefore pursuing the goal of creating a decentralized infrastructure for an independent, sustainable and transparent Internet search in a concerted and joint approach via various European research institutions and institutional players. Dr. Stefan Voigt explained that more than 50 organizations across Europe are already on board with Open Search and strongly support this approach. However, the purely infrastructural development of data centers and the associated development of AI-based search algorithms is not enough to break the dominance of existing offerings. Instead, users must also be empowered to deal with the existing offerings on the internet in a self-determined and confident manner. Prof. Melanie Platz emphasized that the youngest users in particular should be taken by the hand and should be able to learn about media instead of with media. Since the coronavirus pandemic, the curricula of primary school syllabuses have increasingly provided for digital use and thus also digital research tasks on the internet by schoolchildren, but without questioning these mechanisms or even developing search skills.
At the end of the panel discussion, the participants agreed that if a European search engine alternative could be successfully established, there would be a great opportunity not only to establish a European open internet search, but also to create a large number of digital innovations and high-quality AI applications in order to boost the European economy. At the same time, the prize of a digitally oriented and self-determined young generation must be reaped through new concepts in digital education.