Presented by League of Women Voters of Maine in partnership with the League of Women Voters of Alaska

5 p.m. EDT // 4 p.m. CDT // 3 p.m. MDT // 2 p.m. PDT // 1 p.m. AKDT

Under the cover of “innovation,” technology companies have successfully resisted regulation for decades and have begun to seize power from governments. Facial recognition firms track citizens for police surveillance. Cryptocurrency threatens the stability of the global financial system. Spyware companies sell digital intelligence tools to anyone who can afford them. The list goes on. Once you see the systemic problem, you can't unsee it.

Unregulated technology has also become a forceful instrument for autocrats around the world—far from the utopian “public square” that was once promised by Silicon Valley leaders. That’s terrible news for democracies and raises the stakes for the 2024 U.S. presidential election. 

In Schaake’s upcoming book, the former European lawmaker and global leader in tech regulation offers a behind-the-scenes account of Big Tech’s power grab—and what we must do now to stop it.

Marietje Schaake is international policy director at Stanford University Cyber Policy Center and international policy fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. Between 2009 and 2019, she served as a member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands. She writes a monthly column for the Financial Times on technology and governance. 

Suggested reading:

• What Can America Learn from Europe About Regulating Big Tech?, New Yorker profile of the author

About the series:

Disinformation. Conspiracy theories. Extremism. Surveillance. Our democracy is threatened as never before by toxic online content. The social media giants seem unable, or in some cases unwilling, to control the flood of lies and manipulative practices. The staggering — often hidden — reach of Big Tech into our lives endangers civil society, our civil rights, and our privacy. In a "post-truth" world we risk losing the shared understanding that underpins our democracy. 

Each month, we explore a different facet of this crisis with guest experts. Join us to learn, discuss, and work on possible solutions. 

For future events and past recordings, visit https://www.lwvme.org/digitaldemocracy.