RITTER
They want what every first term administration wants…a second term.
From A Clear and Present Danger, written by Tom Clancy (novel), screenplay by Donald Stewart, Steven Saillian and John Milius.
MTP readers will recall that both the Times of London and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung have both confirmed the efforts by Google to influence the vote on copyright reform in the European Union, and investigation we called for on MTP and for which we were mocked by the usual suspects.
Getting mocked by the usual suspects is how you know you’re onto something big, by the way.
But we really owe a big thanks to the really stellar investigative work of Volker Rieck and David Lowery that exposed how Google uses astroturf front groups to “push its views” and for which it no doubt pays well.
There is, of course, a political dimension to this exposé that has not really been examined thoroughly–the fact that the Members of the European Parliament must stand for election next year–less than a year away. And the Member of the European Parliament who certainly appears to be as close to Google as 1 is to 2 is the Pirate Party representative.
The Pirate Party is a creature of proportional representation, an interesting practice that allows political parties with very small constitutencies to field candidates and sometimes get elected. The Pirate Party has one MEP representative elected from Germany, which is interesting because Google has also dropped a pile of cash in Germany according to the Google Transparency Project.
First, Google’s academic influence program in Europe has gone beyond funding existing academic institutions, as it does in the United States, to helping create entirely new institutes and think-tanks in key countries like Germany, France and the United Kingdom. In those countries, executives from Google’s lobbying operation have helped conceive research groups and covered most, or all, of their budgets for years after launch.
Google policy executives have acted as liaisons to steer their research priorities and host public events with policymakers.
For example, Google has paid at least €9 million to help set up the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) at Berlin’s Humboldt University. The new group launched in 2011, after German policymakers voiced growing concerns over Google’s accumulated power.
The Institute has so far published more than 240 scholarly papers on internet policy issues, many on issues of central importance to Google’s bottom line. HIIG also runs a Google-funded journal, with which several Google-funded scholars are affiliated, to publish such research.
The Institute’s reach extends beyond Germany, or even Europe. HIIG previously managed, and still participates, in a global Network of Internet and Society Research Centers to coordinate internet policy scholarship. Many are in emerging markets where Google is trying to expand its footprint, such as India and Brazil.
So it must be said that when Google was caught with its hand in the cookie jar on Article 13, the astroturf effort must be viewed as part of a larger Google policy laundering operation that may include influencing elections. Certainly in a post-Cambridge Analytica world, one cannot simply ignore these dots and all are worthy of investigation for compliance with Europe’s campaign finance laws if nothing else.
For a minority political party in need of a message in the face of an imminent election, it simply cannot be ignored that garnering the finanical support of Google and Facebook for a campaign that directly or indirectly benefits a candidate cannot be overlooked.
Getting Silicon Valley’s billions focused on motiviating the electorate around a particular issue of benefit to such a multinational bloc of monopolists would certainly help motivate voters and guide them to the “right” candidate. As one of the usual suspects noted:
When the European Commission announced its plans to modernize EU copyright law two years ago, the public barely paid attention. This changed significantly in recent months.
Considering that political campaigns in Europe are typically of quite limited duration compared to the US (sometimes as short as 25 days before polling day), coming up with a an issue that a political candidate–especially an incumbent–can leverage to increase their profile that may not rise to the level of a restricted political campaign contribution or electioneering has got to be golden. If that issue can draw support from U.S. based multinational corporations like Google and Facebook leveraging their user networks and advertising clout, all the better for some candidates.
Because in the end, what every incumbent wants is another term. And if they already struggle to field a winner as does the Pirate Party that may well face declining relevance and a situation where they lose their one seat in the next European Parliament election, who knows what compromises may get made and who knows what in-kind donations may surface.
[from https://ift.tt/2llz3cO]
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