Bargaining chip
Dear friends,
Trump and Vance made it clear right at the start of their term in office: with them, there will be no European rules for US tech companies. They are to continue making huge profits from our data unhindered, while at the same time poisoning our democracies. Vance went so far as to question the US future in NATO should the EU enforce rules and taxes for US companies.
It is therefore not surprising that when Trump and the head of the European Commission agreed on the key points for US-EU trade under Trump two weeks ago, one issue was deliberately left open: the rules for US tech companies. This shows that for the European Commission, genuine freedom of expression and the fight against opinion-distorting algorithms are bargaining chips to appease Trump. The negotiations on Ukraine this week will be similar.
The problem with this is that the unbridled power of tech companies is not just a side issue that can be sacrificed in a deal. It is central to the issue. Because only with the help of these companies and their algorithms is a notorious liar and convicted sex offender like Trump even conceivable as US president. The Russian information war against Ukraine and the West would also be virtually impossible without them. Peace and reconciliation are not what these algorithms are designed for.
Don’t take my word for it, take it from Nathanael Liminski, Minister for Europe and Media in Germany’s largest federal state, North Rhine-Westphalia, and an influential member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and EU Commission President von der Leyen. In our webinar before the summer break, he emphasised:
The short-term benefits of a deal with Trump are many times smaller than the damage to our democracy if Europe abandons its rules for tech companies.
2,500 people already think so and have signed our petition for genuine freedom of expression and an end to algorithmic distortion. That’s good, especially during the summer break. But we need many more. This is important because public pressure is needed to ensure that our European digital rules are not sacrificed as a bargaining chip.
Sign the petition yourself and forward the message below to your contacts now.
Thank you very much for your support and best regards,
Alexandra Geese
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I signed this petition because I believe that our European rules for large digital platforms should not be a bargaining chip in negotiations with Trump and Co. On the contrary, they can protect us from people like Trump, Putin & Co. Sign here: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/freedomforfacts/