Platform Power, Free Speech, and Political Interference: Defending Europe’s Digital Sovereignty

Europeans face a growing threat to their fundamental freedoms and democratic institutions, as dominant tech platforms further consolidate their control over the online platforms and other infrastructure essential to communications in the 21st century. These corporations exploit their centralized power and unprecedented ability to personalize the information they deliver to each individual,to manipulate how individuals and groups access and exchange information, news, and ideas; andeven to censor specific individuals and groups.Such power poses a grave danger to individual freedom of expression and thought, democratic governance, and public discourse; and to the ability of citizens, journalists, businesses, and governments to freely receive and impart information. These threats are in many ways analogous to – and increasingly interwoven with – the threats to freedom of expression and thought from authoritarian states.The problem is rapidly becoming more acute, as these same dominant corporations increasingly use artificial intelligence (AI) to both further concentrate their control over information, news, and debate,and further amplify their ability to personalize information and manipulate the individual user.The problem is not new. Online interference in electoral processes – including the Brexit referendum,the 2016 U.S. election, and the 2017 French presidential election – focused concern on Russia and, to a lesser extent, Chinese state manipulation of Western digital news and social media. But sinceJanuary of this year, much of the most intense pressure on Europe has come from the U.S. government.Key members of the current U.S. administration and Republican members of Congress have directly supported these corporations’ interference in European political debate, while falsely depicting European efforts to democratically govern these communications platforms as attacks on freedom of speech.The European Commission and the EU’s MemberStates must stand up to such interference in their sovereign affairs, democratic institutions,and the fundamental rights of their citizens.In doing so, they can rely on foundational laws and treaties as well as a robust set of new laws and expanded regulatory frameworks.That said, the nature and magnitude of the threat demands an even stronger and swifter response designed to: (1) immediately stop today’s dominant tech platforms from amplifying, censoring and otherwise interfering in free speech, and (2) immediately begin laying the foundation for the longer-term construction of a new public digital commons designed to protect democracy and individual rights for generations to come.