Platforms and Journalism: The Hollowing Out of Democracy

Markus Beckedahl – June 13, 2025 – Netzwerk Recherche conference, Hamburg

The richest and most powerful people in the world are lining up behind an authoritarian ruler, while U.S. democracy is being dismantled.

What does this mean for us?

We are witnessing a troubling global trend: a shift to the right—politically, socially, and technologically.

Summary: 

🔥 Platforms and Journalism – The Hollowing Out of Democracy

Markus Beckedahl @ Netzwerk Recherche, Hamburg, June 2025

🧭 Thesis

Digital platforms—controlled by a few tech billionaires—are undermining journalism and democracy. We are facing a coordinated rightward shift across politics, society, and technology, enabled and accelerated by platform capitalism and authoritarian strategies.

Der Kommentar auf die Frage "Stand's drin?"

von Christian Dürr (AFDP).

Exklusiv und nur beim ZDF , ab Minute 20:40

Radiohead's masterpiece that guides me through the decades. Or centuries. While I got my hands on "OK Computer" some time in 1998 in Brighton, it was this piece that had its most lasting impression on me. During that time, me and my partner and later wife had a flat in Frankfurt while she already lived in Brighton. I usually flew in on Thursday evening and out on Sunday evening. Ridiculous, but feeling very important, it was this very song or record that kind of leveled me at the time. It worked like an antidote against the yuppie-life I had been living for years.

Vom 11. April 2020, kleines Zeitdokument, vielleicht.

Liebe Freund*innen,

Reminiscent the good old time of CSR-postings on this blog, here's a must-add: Ed Freeman on "the world has changed" and so has business. Interjecting the blogger before this: yep, the net has changed, too.

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