"We must regain our digital sovereignty"

Searching online, inform themselves, commenting articles, buying products: Internet users primarily rely on the platforms of just a handful
of internet companies, and these are subject to only weak regulations worldwide. Photo: E Vittoriosi/Unsplash

His research is thought-provoking: Martin Andree has a doctorate and habilitation in media studies, teaches digital media at the University of Cologne and monitors the digital world in Germany. In his book "Big Tech must go", he describes the growing concentration in the Internet economy. The researcher is in favour of a legal reassessment of internet companies, firstly because this would lead to different obligations for them and secondly because it could weaken the social consequences of fake news or hate speech. At the 6th Open Search Symposium, #OSSYM, which takes place at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre from 9 to 11 October, Andree will present ways forward to digital sovereignty: "It would be easy to win back the Internet for the people," says the media scientist. Open search and freely available web indexes - the European project Openwebsearch.EU and many volunteers are working on this - are the first steps in the right direction.

"Big Tech must go" – is the claim of your book. The US government recently won the antitrust case against Google for using contracts and money to buy the default search function on platforms and smartphones. Is the power of Big Tech beginning to crumble? Dr Martin Andree: The ruling is very encouraging. In contrast to Germany and the European Union, the US has a long legal tradition of breaking up monopolies - and also a legal basis for doing it, namely the Sherman Act. However, the Sherman Act has not been used in US legal practice since around the turn of the millennium. If the ruling is upheld on appeal, it could usher in a new era of anti-monopoly rulings. However, given political volatility and the erosion of democracy, we can no longer rely on the US and must become capable of taking action ourselves in Germany and the EU.

Is generative AI such as ChatGPT now putting pressure on the monopolies you lamented, or is it even creating new ones - such as AI providers like OpenAI? Andree: The more data a company has at its disposal, the better AI technologies it can develop and train. Generative AI will therefore massively accelerate the monopolisation tendencies in digital markets. This is all the more true as we have been giving Big Tech platforms the rights to use the texts, images and videos we create for decades. They hold all the cards. We have nothing.

Digital transformation tends to promote oligopolies or monopolies, it is said. But does it have to stay this way? Andree: The current monopolisation is the result of active misregulation and is entirely homemade. Let's take the example of digital media. They are replacing analogue media. But we gave the platforms massive regulatory privileges in the mid-1990s - we actively decided that they would not be treated as media. Even though they are media, even though they provide content and monetise that content in the same way as, say, a TV station or a newspaper, the platforms do not have to be liable. If we had said back then - OK, you'll be treated like infrastructure providers, you don't have to be liable for content, but you can never monetise it - we would have a very different internet today. The platforms would just get breadcrumbs, while the bloggers, creators, musicians and writers would get paid fairly.

You suggest that providers such as Google, Microsoft/Linkedin, Amazon, Meta/Facebook, Apple or X/Twitter should be treated as media companies and therefore obliged to be diligent about news. Sounds simple – but why hasn't it happened yet? Andree: For two decades, the tech companies have dressed up their digital feudalism as a kind of "liberation" – presenting themselves as the guardians of freedom of expression. Only in this way have they managed to monetise even criminal and punishable content without having to accept liability. But it is precisely in the digital age, with the coexistence of so many different channels, that people have never had so many opportunities to express themselves freely as they do today. But politicians are reluctant to tackle the issue because they are immediately branded by the digital ecosystems as supposed 'censors'. What is particularly galling is that radical right-wing parties such as the AfD or Trump in the US have long since hijacked this originally left-wing ideology of net freedom to fuel their democratic destruction.

You are a researcher studying the dominance of Internet companies: what can research do to counter this? In other words: Are your theories being listened to? Are companies responding to them? Andree: I have been researching this topic for more than 15 years. But it's only since Elon Musk took over Twitter that people have understood what's happening. Since then, I've been getting more attention, especially as our measurements are the only court-proof measurement of this market dominance worldwide. Unfortunately, this study is not known in the US or in Brussels – which is why I have just translated the book “Big Tech muss weg” in English. Overall, policymakers are acting far too timidly and too slowly. The big technology companies have taken action against me several times. This is frightening on the one hand, but it also shows that they know exactly how controversial our research is.

The influence of Big Tech is growing - can open web indexes for cataloguing the web or open search algorithms still help to break the power? Andree: Yes and no. One thing is clear: we need to regain our digital sovereignty, which we lost long ago. That's why these are so important for society. But such Open Search initiatives can only succeed if we abolish the current monopolistic misregulation and open up the digital markets. I'm sorry to say this, but we must first have the courage to storm the Bastille together. Otherwise it won't work.

Why are you involved in OSSYM24 at the LRZ and what will your presentation be about? Andree: I am a fan of Open Search and find it tragic that we have given up our digital freedom without any defence to a handful of US monopolists who have been trampling on our democracy and values of freedom for years and decades. It would be easy to take back the internet for the people. I will set out the concrete measures at the conference. The good news is that there is a positive momentum going on right now. More and more people are realising that they have been cheated by Big Tech for many years. We would have a parliamentary majority of 80 to 90 percent. So what are we waiting for? (Interview: vs/LRZ)

Dr. Martin Andree, media scientist, author and keynote speaker at #OSSYM24 at LRZ