Digital Sovereignty: The Opportunity Europe Must Seize Now

Europe wants to become more digitally independent: from US cloud services, platforms and corporations that shape the market in Germany, too. But what does this debate look like where these companies are based?

Justin Hendrix observes it up close. From New York, he follows how the relationship between tech companies, politics and democracy is changing in the US. After more than ten years at The Economist, he co-founded Tech Policy Press, a nonprofit media outlet that has been taking a critical look at the power of the tech industry since 2020. He now serves as its CEO and editor. Its newsroom reports, for example, on how US authorities use AI for surveillance, how tech billionaires exert influence on politics, and where new AI data centers get their water and electricity.

Since 2021, the Tech Policy Press Podcast has released several hundred conversations, many of them hosted by Justin Hendrix himself. On 10 December, he’ll answer questions as Publix Director Maria Exner talks with him about perspectives from Washington and Silicon Valley.
 

• How do Washington and Silicon Valley view Europe’s efforts to regulate Big Tech?
• Who actually holds tech companies accountable in their home country?
• And what does it mean to report critically on Big Tech from inside the US?

This Publix Thursday marks the conclusion of the conference “Reporting the Machines – (Mis)Understanding Digital Sovereignty”. The conference is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Mercator Switzerland Foundation, 1014 Deutschland, the Media Innovation Center Babelsberg (MIZ) and the taz Panter Foundation. The event will be held in English. If you already have a ticket for the conference, it is also valid for this evening event.