Informazione virtuale e discriminazioni digitali: alcuni spunti di riflessione.

Digital information currently appears to be of central importance since, whether or not it is shared in the public sphere, it can favor an expansion of the conditions of political, economic and social equality, as well as extremize previous inequalities and create new ones. If, in fact, the participation of some types of digital data certainly appears to be of collective interest, it is accompanied by an improper use which results in a progressive concentration of knowledge capable of leading to dangerous cognitive asymmetries and power imbalances, with risky implications for democracy, unknowns made even more serious by the difficulty of tracing its spatial coordinates and of offering adequate legal regulation. In the virtual world, a further and serious risk of inequality is, then, represented by the use of predictive logic that informs the automatic processes of digital data processing, raising crucial questions about any dangers of discrimination to the detriment of social categories and groups that could be penalized from automatic decision-making, with the enhancement of traditional gaps and outlining new digital disparities that bring to the fore the crucial issues of transparency and algorithmic explainability. Finally, it can be noted that the exclusion from access or from an efficient use of digital technologies risks deepening pre-existing generational, social, economic and cultural distances. These problems have been dramatically highlighted by the recent Covid-19 pandemic which, in revealing the essential role of telecommunications networks and the possession of an adequate digital culture, has, at the same time, exacerbated the digital divide. Looking ahead, the speed of technological innovation seems to require the adoption of targeted "use policies" and conscious regulation actions combined with a strong commitment to continuous education and training aimed not only at those directly involved in the management of digital technologies , but extended to every citizen, enhancing the inclusion of the most vulnerable right from the design phase of technological solutions, resulting in the possibility of exercising an active citizenship.