"Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force: never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."
Churchill, 29 October 1941
We’ve entered an era of fundamental threats to liberal democracy, and Europe is under pincer attack from both East and West. Russia’s disinformation and attempts at destabilisation combine with the lack of accountability of big tech platforms and algorithms, now supercharged by Mark Zuckerberg’s venality and Elon Musk’s superspreading of lies and disinfo.
Undersurface, what’s happening is a deep, structural transformation of our public space with the algorithmification of society, politics and democracy. What history teaches us, from the printing press to the radio, is that revolutions in the means of communication are often also periods of great threats, violence and conflict.
Algorithms tend to recommend and promote outrage, baiting us with ALL CAPS or the most shocking or extreme views. As such, they increasingly render the search for facts, truth and consensus – and the exercise of liberal democracy – impossible. As it happens, the project now of both Putin and Musk is to make our public space a place where ‘everything is possible and nothing is true’.
With the Digital Services Act, the EU has given itself the powers to enforce transparency and ban algorithms that amplify lies. Now the EU must be ready to sanction and ban. This is not only about whether we can implement our own laws, but fundamentally about whether we have the will to protect our constitution.
If we abandon our laws because we are afraid of the consequences or threats from the world's richest man, Trump or Putin, ultimately, what credibility will the EU have, in the face of these men who respect only strength, and as a democratic construct?
We live in an age of cynics and the corrupt. Too many Europeans have lost faith in this continent’s own agency. Europe needs to straighten up! Bullies go for the weakest victims, and the world is watching to see if the EU will defend that rules are right, not only might.
Georg Riekeles is Associate Director and Head of Europe's Political Economy at the European Policy Centre.
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