From Digital Oligarchy to Digital Totalitarianism? With Tina Leisch from "Die Schweigende Mehrheit
When: wed, 19th Nov // 18:00–20:00
Where: servus' Clubraum c/o Stadtwerkstatt, Kirchengasse 4, 4040 Linz
There is no doubt that we live in a global digital oligarchy. A handful of men control the algorithms and revenues of a few social media platforms that increasingly dominate and channel the global flow of information. In Europe, EU regulations attempt, at least to some extent, to subject this undemocratic concentration of digital power to the same rules and laws that are meant to guarantee democracy and the rule of law in the analog world. In many other parts of the world, the “TechBros” rule unchecked and unregulated. Because we have voluntarily made ourselves transparent to Google, Meta, ByteDance, and Amazon, we have helped to build these digital oligarchs.
We will discuss the facts: What exactly do these power structures look like? What national and international regulatory possibilities currently exist? What do the EU’s Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act, and AI Act stipulate? What power do we, as users, actually have? Which alternative communication tools could we use—and why do we rarely do so? How did a few digital oligarchs manage to turn the utopia of a free global communication network, where all people could communicate equally and without censorship, into an incubator for online hate, racism, and anti-democratic forces? What would a utopian digital structure look like?
Our ideas of “authoritarianism,” “totalitarianism,” and “fascism” are shaped by the nightmare of overpowering, all-knowing state rule. Yet in the digital realm, we are faced with overpowering, all-knowing *private* corporations whose data dominance allows them to influence public opinion and elections—and thus to help create compliant governments. How has the relationship between states and the economy changed in the digital universe? With what terms can we describe this transfer of formerly sovereign powers into private hands? What is to be done?
Participants with expertise in political science, internet policy, and media economics are especially welcome.
> BIO
Die Schweigende Mehrheit (The Silent Majority) is an international, internationalist artist collective that has been producing political and cultural interventions on stages, screens, in public spaces, and in classrooms since 2015.
Tina Leisch is a film -, text- and theaterworker.
The workshop will be mainly held in German.
https://www.schweigendemehrheit.at/
Hier registrieren>> https://umfrage.servus.at/index.php/427682?newtest=Y&lang=en