European Democracy Shield Consultation Contribution
The Open Markets Institute submitted feedback to the European Commission’s Democracy Shield initiative, urging action against Big Tech’s concentrated power as a major threat to democratic institutions and information systems.
The Open Markets Institute has submitted feedback in response to the European Commission’s call for evidence for the European Democracy Shield, an initiative seeking to protect Europe’s democratic institutions and processes from foreign interference, disinformation, and cyber threats. It aims to strengthen democratic resilience across member states through coordinated policies, information sharing, and support for media freedom and civil society.
OMI’s contribution underlines the urgent need to recognise and address the role concentrated corporate power plays in undermining democracy. The submission provides detailed evidence to illustrate how private interests backed by immense market power in key sectors, notably in the digital sphere, represent a threat to democracy no less important than that posed by state-sponsored foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI).
The Open Markets Institute urges the Commission to recognise five key truths when considering its options for the European Democracy Shield:
1. The surveillance advertising-based business model and the incentives it creates are in direct conflict with democratic principles. Measures that fail to address this reality will be ineffective in safeguarding and strengthening democratic discourse.
2. Big Tech’s one-sided relationship with publishers is undermining the independent media, by accelerating media consolidation and weakening the pluralistic media environment necessary for a healthy democracy.
3. Monopolistic corporations have political agendas of their own and the power and incentives to further these in antidemocratic ways. This is especially true for Big Tech corporations, which shape our access to information in unprecedented ways.
4. Dominant technology platforms can and are being instrumentalised to further their owners’ personal political and ideological priorities, which can and do go far beyond commercial interests.
5. Market concentration, particularly in the technology sector, creates significant opportunities for states (notably the United States and China, but also in Europe) to leverage their power over corporations to censor speech and interfere in the domestic affairs of other states.
To address these threats, OMI calls on the European Commission to address the democratic threats created and amplified by unrestrained concentrated corporate power. This is especially crucial in the tech sector, given the power a few tech giants have over the information systems that democracy depends on. Big Tech’s growing dominance across the AI “stack” risks amplifying these risks and creating new ones.
Recommendations include:
A renewed emphasis on data protection and enforcement of the GDPR, with a focus on dominant market actors and their surveillance-driven business models. AI development does not justify further acceleration in the harvesting and exploitation of personal data.
Proactive antitrust enforcement at the EU and member state level, including the use of structural remedies to break up dominant market positions and promote informational diversity.
Robust enforcement of EU and member state merger control regimes to prevent further harmful concentration of power in the technology and media sectors, with a focus on informational plurality.
Well-funded and proactive enforcement of the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, with a focus on algorithmic amplification, practices which stifle fair competition in the social media and advertising markets, and anti-competitive conduct in AI and cloud computing.
Fostering digital alternatives which do not concentrate power in the hands of single corporate entities and their owners, notably by redirecting public procurement budget spending away from US tech giants and allocating public funding to decentralised and democratic technologies.