Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Aug 27, 2025

The disconnect of Davos Man

The disconnect of Davos Man

You may have missed Ursula von der Leyen’s big speech at Davos last week. Most people did. Perhaps because Davos was a more low-key affair than normal this year.

Ordinarily the annual summit of the World Economic Forum allows various world leaders to jet into the Swiss Alps in order to lecture the rest of us on the virtues of zero carbon. But this year the head of the Forum — Klaus Schwab — greeted his guests virtually and alone. Welcoming the President of the European Commission down the line, the two reminisced about last year’s summit and such pleasures as being lectured by Greta Thunberg.

Although they tried to pretend that last year’s meeting in some way foresaw the era we are now in, of course it did no such thing. It never does. For while Davos man (and woman) imagine themselves staring steely-gazed into our long-term future, the short-term future keeps on happening. And that rarely if ever includes anything that Davos man warned about — which is quite the accomplishment, given that an average Davos insight is to say that the challenges we face in the years ahead are global and must therefore have global solutions. Davos is packed with insights hardly worth the bus fare, let alone the private jet fare.

In any case, the Davos desire to retrofit such blandishments into our current reality was nowhere so evident as in von der Leyen’s remarks about big tech. In her ‘Special Address’, the President of the EC said that Davos had warned about ‘the business models of big tech companies and the consequences for our democracy’. This year, believing that such extraordinary foresight had been vindicated, she said that the storming of the US Capitol last month was an example of ‘the darker sides of the digital world’. Inevitably she called on the new US President to join the EU in drawing up ‘a common rule book’ for the tech companies.

Though it pains me to say it, von der Leyen is on to something. Big tech is one of the menaces of the age, with a power that exceeds anything in the history of information. It not only has the power to decide what we can hear, say and know but the ability to decide what the past, as well as the present and future, looks like. The most benevolent reading is that it wields a power that is beyond any individual company’s competency. A less benevolent reading is that it allows a small number of malign Silicon Valley lefties the power to impose their world view over every non-totalitarian-ruled population on the planet.

Of course, we now know that it should never have got to this. If the big tech companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook were companies in the 1980s, then they would have been hauled in front of a monopolies and mergers commission, investigated and broken up. But that didn’t happen. Instead the companies ate up all their competition, ran to tax havens and boasted about the ‘charitable contributions’ they made to various left-wing causes in lieu of doing anything as mundane as paying taxes.

So when I hear anyone professing a desire to take on big tech I feel a surge of solidarity. Even when the solidarity must be with Ursula von der Leyen. And yet the problem is obvious and von der Leyen exemplifies it. For if there were a competition to find an entity less trustworthy than big tech to decide what all the world’s citizens can say, know and hear, then the European Commission and von der Leyen would surely be a shoe-in.

For instance, when she says that we must ‘defend our institutions against the corrosive power of hate speech’, ‘disinformation’ and ‘fake news’, what is she thinking of?

Would it include supra-national institutions ordering raids on laboratories, breaking contract law and rupturing borders whose integrity they have spent years professing to care about? Would it ever include a speech by a panjandrum of the EU? Could it ever include anything from Emmanuel Macron? One suspects not, for while social media companies have recently seen fit to censor the now former president of the United States, the present Israeli Prime Minister and endless conservative media outlets (including America’s oldest news-paper), the name of the French President, like the European Commission, appears to be listed on some other, more benevolent, side of the ledger.

So when President Macron speculates — as he did last week — about the efficacy of a Covid vaccine produced in the UK, he does not see his social media accounts taken away from him. He does not see himself unverified or subjected to endless ‘fact-checking’. Like the Supreme Leader of Iran, the Communist party of China and sundry terrorist groups, the French President is able to merrily tweet away despite pumping out vaccine scepticism in a country that does not need an injection of the same.

A reminder — if we needed it — that the only thing messier than a barely regulated internet is one regulated by the people who would like to regulate it. Von der Leyen and others believe that they have the answers on tech regulation because they believe that they have the answers on most things. But if they were so good either at forecasting problems or dealing with current ones, the EC would not have created the mess that it has. Anybody who likes how von der Leyen has organised the EU vaccine procurement programme is going to love how she tries to organise everything they are allowed to know and say.

All discussion over internet regulation is subject to nothing so much as a thousand examples of the Russell Conjugation. That is the tendency to inflect your judgment of a statement depending on the person making it. So, for instance, while I am exercising free speech, you may be demonstrating problematic speech and someone we dislike is practising hate speech. It is a version of the fact that while you are always entertaining at dinner, another person is garrulous and a third is a drunken bore.

So it is with fake news, disinformation, hate speech and all the rest of the things von der Leyen and Davos man worry about. People like them never spread disinformation or fake news, just as they never break the law. Only other people do that. Which is why it is always other people who must be stopped.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Manhunt in Australia: Armed Anti-Government Suspect Kills Police Officers Sent to Arrest Him
China Launches World’s Most Powerful Neutrino Detector
How Beijing-Linked Networks Shape Elections in New York City
Ukrainian Refugee Iryna Zarutska Fled War To US, Stabbed To Death
Elon Musk Sues Apple and OpenAI Over Alleged App Store Monopoly
2 Australian Police Shot Dead In Encounter In Rural Victoria State
Vietnam Evacuates Hundreds of Thousands as Typhoon Kajiki Strikes; China’s Sanya Shuts Down
UK Government Delays Decision on China’s Proposed London Embassy Amid Concerns Over Redacted Plans
A 150-Year Tradition to Be Abolished? Uproar Over the Popular Central Park Attraction
A new faith called Robotheism claims artificial intelligence isn’t just smart but actually God itself
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner Purchases Third Property Amid Housing Tax Reforms Debate
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Italian Facebook Group Sharing Intimate Images Without Consent Shut Down Amid Police Investigation
Dutch Foreign Minister Resigns Amid Deadlock Over Israel Sanctions
Trump and Allies Send Messages of Support to Ukraine on Independence Day Amid Ongoing Conflict
China Reels as Telegram Chat Group Shares Hidden-Camera Footage of Women and Children
Sam Nicoresti becomes first transgender comedian to win Edinburgh Comedy Award
Builders uncover historic human remains in Lancashire house renovation
Australia Wants to Tax Your Empty Bedrooms
MotoGP Cameraman Narrowly Avoids Pedro Acosta Crash at Hungarian Grand Prix
FBI Investigates John Bolton Over Classified Documents in High-Profile Raids
Report reveals OpenAI pitched national ChatGPT Plus subscription to UK ministers
Labour set to freeze income tax thresholds in long-term 'stealth' tax raid
Coca‑Cola explores sale of Costa coffee chain
Trial hears dog walker was chased and fatally stabbed by trio
Restaurateur resigns from government hospitality council over tax criticism
Spanish City funfair shut after serious ride injury
Suspected arson at Ilford restaurant leaves three in critical condition
Tottenham beat Manchester City to go top of Premier League
Bank holiday heatwave to hit 30°C before remnants of Hurricane Erin arrive
UK to deploy immigration advisers to West Africa to block fake visas
Nurse who raped woman continued working for a year despite police alert
Drought forces closures of England’s canal routes, canceling boat holidays
Sweet tooth scents: food-inspired perfumes surge as weight-loss drugs suppress appetites
Experts warn Britain dangerously reliant on imported food
Family of Notting Hill Carnival murder victim call event unmanageable
Bunkers, Billions and Apocalypse: The Secret Compounds of Zuckerberg and the Tech Giants
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
New York Appeals Court Voids Nearly $500 Million Civil Fraud Penalty Against Trump While Upholding Fraud Liability
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
Child-free hotels spark controversy
North Korea is where this 95-year-old wants to die. South Korea won’t let him go. Is this our ally or a human rights enemy?
Hong Kong Launches Regulatory Regime and Trials for HKD-Backed Stablecoins
China rehearses September 3 Victory Day parade as imagery points to ‘loyal wingman’ FH-97 family presence
Trump Called Viktor Orbán: "Why Are You Using the Veto"
×