In a moment of rapid change for global politics, Big Tech platforms and their owners are shaping up to be international power brokers. Trump's White House cozies up to Silicon Valley oligarchs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, and clashes with the EU over its platform laws. How does the power of Big Tech affect our democracies, and can it be contained? In this panel discussion, researchers Theresa Josephine Seipp and Paddy Leerssen will discuss their latest research on platform power and regulation.
Paddy Leerssen will present new research on the international political economy of platform regulation. He will discuss state-government relationships in the EU and US, and how these have changed under the new Trump presidency and its new alliances with platform oligarchs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Theresa will present findings from her research on platforms and the media sector. Her work explores the intricate and intertwined relationship between platforms and the media, and how these drive concentration and shifting power over (public) opinion formation processes – often to non-European, non-journalistic actors. A key focus of the discussion will be the potentially dangerous consequences of opinion steering and manipulation through social media platforms, as well as the growing dependence of (European) media on technologies provided by Big Tech companies.