Europe Calling ‘Hostile Takeover? – How tech billionaires are undermining our democracies & what the EU can do’
13.January 20:00 - 22:00
Register right here!
Dear friends and supporters!
It’s unmistakable: with Twitter, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, has bought himself a megaphone and is holding it right up to the world’s ears. He is not only interfering in US politics, which he will control as a de facto member of Donald Trump’s government.
In Germany, Musk is calling for the far-right AfD to be elected, in the UK he supports convicted right-wing extremists and in Canada, the now resigned Prime Minister Trudeau was in Musk’s and Trump’s crosshairs.
Musk is not the only tech billionaire to interfere in democracy:
- Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg has announced that Meta is discontinuing its fact-checking by independent journalists on Facebook, Instagram and Co. for the X-variant ‘Community Notes’, which gives free rein to hate, agitation and disinformation.
- Amazon billionaire and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has undermined the newspaper’s traditional election recommendations and critical reporting and is donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, as do Zuckerberg and OpenAI boss Sam Altman.
- Billionaire Peter Thiel wants to replace democracy with the rule of rich entrepreneurs and has made protégé JD Vance his US vice president.
Reason enough to take a close look at the tech billionaires, their platforms, algorithms and strategies in the first Europe Calling webinar in 2025. We also want to talk about freedom of expression and censorship and what the EU can and should do in concrete terms now.
Our guests are:
- Professor Shoshana Zuboff | Renowned economist and author of ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’
- Robin Berjon | Brussels-based technology expert specialising in governance and standards and deputy director of the IPFS Foundation
- Markus Beckedahl | Internet policy activist and journalist in Berlin, founder of netzpolitik.org & co-founder of Re:Publica
- Jakob Hanke-Vela | Journalist, head of the Brussels office of the German newspaper ‘Handelsblatt’ and former author of the POLITICO Brussels Playbook
- Alexandra Geese | Digital expert and Member of the European Parliament for Bündnis90/Die Grünen, co-negotiator of the EU Digital Services Act and Europe-Calling board member
- Moderation: Maximilian Fries | Managing Director of Europe Calling e.V.
Register here: LINK
Date: Monday, 13 January 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 pm CET (Berlin/Brussels)
The webinar will be simultaneously interpreted in German and English.
Come and invite others!
With European greetings,
Maximilian Fries from Europe Calling e.V.