Big Tech’s threat to democracy
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Do tech giants like Google, Apple or Facebook have too much power? They gather enormous amounts of information about us, which is often sold and distributed for commercial purposes. And their platforms are used by hate campaigns and for sharing disinformation in a way that many people believe is putting severe pressure on democracy as we know it. In this episode, we hear how the Nordic countries have become a high-profile battlefield in the defining power struggle of our digital age and ask what can be done to protect our rights as citizens.
“The tech giants are creating unprecedented concentrations of knowledge – and that gives them vast power”.
Shoshana Zuboff, professor at Harvard Business School and the author of
“The Age of Surveillance Capitalism”
This podcast episode features the following speakers
Hanne Aho (Finland)
Hanne Aho is the president of the Union of Journalists in Finland (UJF). As a trade union of more than 14,000 journalists, media workers, and other communications professionals, UJF is active in debates on journalism ethics, press freedom, and the role and future of media and journalism in the digital age. Previously, Hanne held various positions in media industry organizations and worked for 15 years at the Suomen Kuvalehti weekly news magazine.
Shoshana Zuboff (US)
Shoshana Zuboff is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School and the author of three major books examining the social effects of the world's digital transformation. Her ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power’, describes the emergence of a new economic order, the surveillance economy, and explores what governments and individuals can do to protect democratic values and rights in this new digital age.
Margrethe Vestager (Denmark)
Margrethe Vestager is a Danish politician and European commissioner, currently serving as Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for a Europe fit for the digital age and European Commissioner for Competition. In her role as Competition Commissioner, she has gained international recognition by leading a determined battle to hold the world's largest high-tech companies accountable.