Digital power – when the USA pulls the plug

A life on the net. Are we prepared for it? To fidget on the network of those who belong to our data? That derive consumption knowledge from it? Regulation knowledge, manipulation knowledge and worst case knowledge? “This coup takes place with software-and not with tanks,” explains network activist Markus Beckedahl with a view to the unholy alliance between tech oligarchy and government power in the United States. Are we prepared for it? The »Re: Publica«, Europe’s largest digital conference that took place in Berlin at the end of May, says: We have to be. Because we still hang too much on the plug of the US companies.

“Life online” was the motto of the first “Re: publica” in 2007. What sounded like a departure at the time is now drifting in trouble opposite direction. From the euphoria about the potential of a rule -free discourse in the digital, the horror has become the possibilities of rule. At this year’s conference, the iconography of a collective trauma is haunted by the Viral photo of Donald Trump’s inauguration by the lectures on which the US tech oligarchy can be seen in front of the US President Spellier. Here are a few numbers: With over 50 percent, according to Statista.de, Facebook is still the most used platform in Germany. According to digital minister Karsten Wildberger, over 75 percent of European cloud data are on US servers. According to Markus Beckedahl, our administrations are now 99 percent dependent on Microsoft. The program of the »Re: Publica« was therefore noticeable from the current developments in the United States. For a long time, the conference, which was bursting at the seams every year-according to the organizer, there were 1200 speakers in over 650 »program sessions«-no longer in such an alarming presence.

The “Re: Publica” was always a promise “that technology is not a fate-but a decision,” explained co-founder Johnny Haeusler. And so there were numerous initiatives, projects, NGOs that work on alternative solutions to American digital providers at the most diverse levels of our society, privately and state. Discussions about the European digital pact »Euro Stack«, a sovereign cloud solution for the continent were to be experienced. It was about the new public law streaming platform of ARD and ZDF, which open source wants to provide a player that can act as a replacement for YouTube. And it was always about the digital service act, with which the EU wants to set legal framework conditions to the large tech platforms, the operational enforcement, according to the fear of becoming a negotiating mass in the Trump trade dispute.

USA, Russia, Middle East – the global mixture is more explosive than ever, which, paradoxically, was going well for this year’s “re: publica”. Already on the first day she broadcast the Breaking News of the hour: Chancellor Friedrich Merz surprisingly announced a change in German foreign policy in the face of the current war events in Gaza. One direction that Foreign Minister Johann WadePhul emphasized the following day. Anyway, the politicians gave themselves the microphone by hand again this year. A fact that network activists criticize because a conference like the »Re: Publica« produces too much proximity to the state. However, what-thanks to the dialectics of the knotting-apparently does not apply to left-wing star Heidi Reichinnek. The member of the Bundestag received applause from the high-full audience hall, while the new CDU digital minister Karsten Wildberger only received approval, for example when he announced that the state also wanted to work for open source solutions.

But at least: Even if the former head of the commercial group has no government experience, there is finally its own Federal Ministry of Digital. Whether the balance between innovation and data protection promised by Wildberger succeeds will then be the topic of the next “re: publicas”. In any case, co-founder Markus Beckedahl and other speakers made it clear again and again with a view to the United States what could happen, stored data would also be “misused” at the level of government. The concept of “digital fascism” was in the room several times.

Now the RE: Publica is always a place of theses and opposites, scientific studies and their falsification. Does AI make mankind stupid or smarter? Does social media influence the election behavior towards the right or left? Just a few months ago, the international meta study “Information Ecosystem and Troubled Democracy” set the thesis that there is currently no empirical evidence of the influence of digital disinformation on democratic processes. Instead, according to Matthias Kettemann, professor at the University of Innsbruck and one of the authors of the study, be it the media and political theme of disinformation that shear distrust and destabilize social processes. So does the RE: Publica also operate with a media -generated alarmism? Certainly not, because the positions are too polyphonic.

The journalist and lawyer Torben Klausa from Agora Digital Transformation gGmbH, who dealt with the effects of social media on the democratic discourse, brought the counter -shot to the study. The myth is still circulating that platforms are neutral providers. The problem is only: many content is harmful to discourse, but legal. His plea: The EU must establish its regulatory efforts instead of content to the functional logic of the platforms. For example, by might be encouraged to not highlight content after interaction, which prioritizes extreme content, but for consensus. Optional options for users would also be conceivable to activate alternative algorithms of third -party providers who sort the content according to other rules.

Another point of dispute was the global success of generative AI. Ute Schmid, professor of cognitive systems at the University of Bamberg, pointed out the risks of the early knowledge of knowledge in schools. Used unreflected, KIS led to a “mcDonaldization of learning”, since the reward is no longer in the acquisition of knowledge, but in the fast AI generating of response. It therefore decidedly advocated new didactic discussions.

And so it went at this year’s “Re: publica”, which was looking for intergenerational dialogue under the motto “Generation XYZ”, as usual. A tried -and -tested procedure to oppose a complete “landing of the cognitive through the digital”, as political scientist Albrecht von Lucke formulated. Or about the people, such as “Re: publica” KO founder Andreas Gebhard said, simply “blow up” a little.