Uncertainty is constantly growing as to whether and by whom citizens‘ interests will be to preserve our democracies implemented.
More than 9 months ago, I submitted a motion to the liberal EU parliamentarians to decisively counter all autocracies by digitally mapping genuine citizen participation.
With a high political consensus, the concept was forwarded by the EU delegates via the political base to the Federal Technical Committee as the extended arm of the Digital Ministry. Here it seeped into one of the numerous black holes to be found here.
I am not publishing details here because could the concept still be implemented today and could have a considerable influence on the Ukraine war. It is enough to understand the state of democracy that this would enable all Russian speakers to exert real influence without having to fear reprisals by a state.
All wars start from a central concentration of power. Historically, wars have usually been misused to divert attention from internal tensions and the resulting loss of power. The Ukraine war is the litmus test for all democracies. At this moment unfortunately I see no signs that democracies will be strengthened by this.
If we were to transfer the basic democratic principles of the citizen’s power of disposal to a digital society, then wars would not be possible. The majority of citizens see no advantage for themselves in a war. This is why we have been able to maintain peace in Europe since the Second World War. With the right digital concepts could even these strengths of democracies be expanded globally without endangering the security to be guaranteed by the respective state.
Digital societies are emerging at an increasing speed, which consistently obey centralist principles. The game of the secret services has long been out of control. The central concepts for the surveillance of other states should be strictly from the decentralised concepts for the security of their own citizens separated.
What is relevant is that both the social media gatekeepers and the press profit financially from the artificial excitement surrounding the US leak. It becomes abundantly clear to citizens how little they know about the power games that directly affect them. Accordingly, they no longer have the opportunity to exercise the basic democratic principle of co-determination.
Technically, it is possible today to provide every digitally forwarded secret document with a signature so that it is later clearly traceable who is responsible for a leak.
Much more important, however, would be the introduction of social control on the internet. According to my proposal from 2017 would be a conditional digital citizen’s allowance (basic income) paid to participate in a group of randomly composed evaluators who categorise and assess every new document available on the internet. Since another group of evaluators would be in the event of ambiguous assessments called in, would manipulation be largely ruled out. An optimal workflow would be by means of AI guaranteed. Data is the currency of the future. In terms of society as a whole, such an approach would definitely pay off. In the meantime, we have learned that we have to take social action against the deforestation of the rainforests. In the same way, we as citizens must take action against the overall social consequences of a socially unreflective digitalisation if we want to preserve democracy.
The current manipulation of the masses is the opposite of a democratic process. Whenever it comes to manipulation and surveillance, the emerging post-democratic societies can only be second best. The autocracies will win the digital transformation if are the current digital concepts maintained.
The Federal Constitutional Court has rejected my constitutional complaint, based on over 20 years of experience of state omission, against a) „the emergence of a digital society in which no power emanates from the people“,
b) „the abandonment of the transmission of the constitutional order of a digital society by the forces of the free market“ for consideration.
Under -1 BvR 227/23 – it was then decided by the First Senate not to accept the complaint for decision. According to the decision of the Erste Senat from 28.2.2023 cannot a proactive shaping of a digital society in Germany be assumed in the future.