In this eighth episode we will talk about the new corporate power structures we are facing today. Big Tech is now able to privatize the digital public space and is capable of owning all data generated in doing so. Additionally, we see that Big Tech is offering financial services where they have the potential to gain a huge market share. How can Europe make sure that, despite the fact we don’t have our own Big Tech, keep control of technologies which shape our lives? Is the political ambition of the European commission to make a uniform digital identity for European citizens the way forward or does this lead to more surveillance?
About the speakers
Rana Foroohar is Global Business Columnist and an Associate Editor at the Financial Times. She is also CNN’s global economic analyst. Prior to joining the FT and CNN, Foroohar spent 6 years at TIME, as an assistant managing editor and economic columnist. She previously spent 13 years at Newsweek, as an economic and foreign affairs editor and a foreign correspondent covering Europe and the Middle East. Her most recent book is Don’t Be Evil: How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles And All of Us (Crown). Foroohar received awards and fellowships from institutions such as the Johns Hopkins School of International Affairs and the East West Center. She is also a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and sits on the advisory board of the Open Markets Institute.
Jonathan Taplin is Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. He was a Professor at the USC Annenberg School from 2003-2016. Taplin’s areas of specialization are in international communication management and the field of digital media entertainment. Taplin began his entertainment career in 1969 as Tour Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973 he produced Martin Scorsese’s first feature film, Mean Streets. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries and 12 feature films. In 1984 Taplin acted as the investment advisor to the Bass Brothers in their successful attempt to save Walt Disney Studios from a corporate raid. This experience brought him to Merrill Lynch, where he served as vice president of media mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Taplin was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the California Broadband Task Force in January of 2007.
About the series
Foroohar tells the story of how giddy idealism turned to greed, how a world where “information wants to be free” became one in which we are the product being monetized, how the geeks tinkering with motherboards in their basements grew to be arrogant billionaires monopolizing the lion‘s share of the economy, and how the “democratized” internet we were promised can threaten the very fabric of our democracy.
How Facebook, Google and Amazon cornered culture and undermined democracy. A stinging polemic that traces the destructive monopolization of the internet by 'the big three', and that proposes new futures for musicians, journalists, authors and filmmakers in the digital age.
Towards a new market economy in Europe for future generations.
