Zuckerberg’s Strategy

On January 7, 2025, and in the days following, the founder and CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, made a series of statements that framed Meta's previous and future content policy with an evidently strategic intention. The change of content moderation policy, as described in three comprehensive points in his personal announcement on his own platforms, may even sound reasonable, as discussed below. However, the reasoning and the framing of these changes appear to show that Meta is up to something entirely different from just further optimizing its curation of content on its platforms.

21. Januar 2025

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Plutocracy 2025

When thinking about this current moment in time when major currents of political and economic power seem to flow into each other in exceptional and perhaps unparalleled ways, it might be useful to tease out in some more detail how exactly plutocracy 2025 differs from the entanglements of economic and business power that have come before. Here is one difference that seems particularly striking. Plutocracy in 2025, unlike its typical predecessors,  is not really engineered in discrete fashion behind the scenes by deep-rooted dynasties of political and economic life. Instead, it is a full-frontal brash attack right on the public stage.

20. Januar 2025

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Trump’s Order of Law

Today, January 20, 2025, Donald Trump is going to be inaugurated a second time as the 47th President of the United States. His presidency is expected to herald a dramatic change to America’s policy on immigration as his hardcore rhetoric may transform into hardened policy. To fulfil his campaign promises, in particular his planned mass deportation policy, Trump has repeatedly stated his intention to invoke two archaic laws: the 1807 Insurrection Act and the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. This blog will provide an overview of the two acts, explain the requirements for the President-elect to utilize them, and detail potential ways to cabin their use.

20. Januar 2025

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The Hidden Reach of the EU AI Act

The EU AI Act not only regulates artificial intelligence but also triggers the application of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, embedding EU principles of procedural justice into national administrative law. This development advances the Europeanisation of domestic legal systems and reshapes the balance between EU and national public law in the digital age.

20. Januar 2025

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Protecting Democracy in the Digital Era

At the dawn of 2025, liberal democracy is faced with a considerable challenge: Big Tech bosses appear to leverage their market power for far-reaching political influence, without any democratic legitimisation to do so. As someone working on issues of market power in the digital economy, one cannot help but wonder: shouldn’t competition law be able to contain (some of) this unseeming wielding of market power?

19. Januar 2025

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Reichweite reicht nicht

Elon Musk nutzt die Reichweite seiner Plattform „X“, um sich in den politischen Diskurs außerhalb der USA einzuschalten. Vergangenen Donnerstag wurde ein von ihm geführtes Interview mit AfD-Spitzenkandidatin Alice Weidel über die Plattform ausgestrahlt, das zahlreiche Inhaltsverkürzungen und unzutreffende Darstellungen enthielt. Die öffentliche Kritik an der Plattform wird deshalb lauter. Dennoch will die deutsche Bundesregierung nicht auf den Nutzen der Plattformen verzichten. Die Begründung: Nur so könne sie eine große Zahl bzw. bestimmte Wählergruppen effektiv erreichen. Aus verfassungsrechtlicher Perspektive kann dieses Argument jedoch nicht überzeugen.

17. Januar 2025

Musk, Techbrocracy, and Free Speech

In this blogpost, I situate and address Musk’s position within the broader EU debate on freedom of expression. The purpose of this symposium is to elucidate aspects that make Musk, his influence, and his provocations to the EU legal order, problematic under EU law, and, should we consider his influence as unwanted, harmful or illegal, whether EU law can provide answers to it. This post centres on three points: (i) Musk’s changes to X’s content moderation process, (ii) Musk’s usage of X to amplify select political candidates and (iii) Musk’s ownership of Starlink. It ends with a note on how this fits in a grander theme, which has been dubbed by commentators such as Paul Bernal as the ‘techbrocracy’.

17. Januar 2025

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Musk, Power, and the EU

At a time when calls for the EU to respond to Musk’s provocations multiply, critical questions about whether, why, and how the EU may react remain largely unanswered. Musk’s conduct, which spans sectors as diverse as social media (X, formerly Twitter), AI (xAI), satellite technology (Starlink), space rockets (SpaceX), and electric vehicles (Tesla), pose unique challenges to existing legal frameworks. His multi-industry influence gives rise to profound questions about the limits of individual influence and power accumulation in a complex geopolitical landscape.

17. Januar 2025

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