Democratic scrutiny of social media: Let democracy reign the digital age, not corporations and machines!

Today, the European Parliament debated the democratic scrutiny of social media and the protection of fundamental rights. The power of social media platforms is increasingly being questioned. In his plenary speech Patrick Breyer, Member of the European Parliament (Pirate Party), emphasised:

„If the dominant Internet platforms were states, they would be dictatorships that use an army of robots to spy on its citizens and manipulate them, that dictate the news headlines, that arbitrarily censor what their citizens may say, that cut off communications with citizens of other countries, that expel them at will from their country.

The EU must stop to put these tech despots and their error-prone machines in charge of curing society, of preventing violence and crime, lies and hate, because this fuels the despot‘s power, and despots will use despotic means.

The weapons of a democracy are humans, the rule of law, and independent courts to take decision.

Let‘s start setting up our own federated platforms and make the corporate platforms interconnect.

Let democracy reign the digital age, not corporations and machines!“