Yes, wars are raging across continents, alliances are being tested, and tensions are escalating across borders and oceans. However, I would wager that if von Kleist-Schmenzin were alive today, he would agree that the most consequential struggle of our time may not be unfolding on traditional battlefields at all. Instead, it’s unfolding in the digital realm, where control over personal data — over our digital personhood — is the central source of power and influence in the modern world.
When the World Wide Web was born, we were promised an era of democratic participation — a digital town square for a new millennium. What we have instead is something far darker: Predatory algorithms shredding civil society, warping truth and pitting neighbor against neighbor, while a handful of the world’s richest companies know more about us than any intelligence agency ever could.
Deep down, we all feel the absolute grip of the Internet on society. We feel it at the national level, as polarization and misinformation continue to fray our social fabric, upend elections and disrupt the world order. We feel it at our kitchen tables, as artificial intelligence bots and polarizing voices prey on the mental and social health of our children.
This crisis is no accident. It’s the world Big Tech has deliberately built.
From the moment Facebook introduced the “like” button, the Internet began its descent from a boundless repository of knowledge into a system optimized for rage, addiction and profit—one that rewards division and disregards truth.
The business model is quite straightforward: Algorithms are engineered to capture our attention and exploit it, rather than inform or connect us. And by the metric of stock price, this model has been wildly successful. Big Tech companies have amassed trillions of dollars in record time. And they’ve done so by accumulating the most valuable resource in human history — our personal data. Acquiring it through a surveillance apparatus that would make the Stasi blush.