A handful of U.S. companies have a firm grip on the Internet. Media scholar Martin Andree was the first researcher to quantify this accumulation of digital power for Germany. From 2029, digital media will account for more than 75% of advertising expenditure in Germany. This means that US platforms will be able to control the formation of political opinion and choose which content to hide or emphasize.

By Oskar Köppen

Which websites did you visit today? Which online services did you use? Where do you look for information, watch videos, shop online, send messages to your loved ones? Alphabet Inc. owns Google and YouTube. Meta includes Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. iPhone users hardly ever have to leave Apple’s ‘fenced garden’. And if you want to buy and sell online, Amazon and eBay come to mind first – and then nothing for a very long time.

A handful of U.S. firms own the Internet. These Big Tech companies account for half of all German internet data traffic. The top 100 websites and apps account for 72 percent of traffic. Compared to that, the rest – the online presence of newspapers and broadcasters, hundreds of thousands of institutional websites, blogs and encyclopaedias – is practically of no significance. Like a big desert with an oasis where only the strongest get water.

Measuring the digital world

The fact that this data is known is thanks to Dr Martin Andree. The media scholar researches and teaches as a lecturer for digital media at the University of Cologne, where he also did his Habilitation. In addition to his research, he was responsible for digital marketing at Henkel for 19 years and has been managing his own data analysis start-up since 2019. This was when he also began to empirically prove his earlier models on digital concentration: He analysed the real usage behaviour of 16,000 over 14-year-olds in Germany, who accessed more than 130,000 online offers across all devices. He has published his representative analysis of many billions of impressions in his book ‘Atlas der digitalen Welt’ (Atlas of the digital world). According to Andree, this was the world’s first holistic survey of the digital world based on real usage by a country’s population. Where previous studies usually showed the results of surveys, Andree’s data was derived from the actual traffic measurement on the devices of a representative sample of users.

That no one knew until then who was browsing which websites and for how long in the seemingly open, statistics-driven Internet is only surprising at first glance. “The digital corporations have no interest in scientific evidence which could demonstrate in a court of law how competition mechanisms have been completely abolished in most areas of digital media,” said Andree. What was originally planned as a periodic investigation turned into a single publication after the digital corporations intervened.

“I do not expect such a study to be conducted again in the next five to ten years,” Andree said about his experience, which he does not discuss in detail for legal reasons. Besides, he heard similar stories from journalists researching digital power accumulation. Andree wants to draw the public’s attention to the topic, so he published the political interpretation of his results in his new book ‘Big Tech muss weg’ (We have to get rid of Big Tech) a few weeks ago. A whole chapter documents in detail that digital corporations manipulate, intimidate and blackmail scientists and media outlets, that they are already “actively taking action against the freedom of media and science”, at least in the western world. In his current book, Martin Andree wants to raise awareness of the danger that lies ahead: “Only if we understand what is happening can we, as a democratic society, take action against it.” He donates the author’s fees for the new book to the ‘Study and Teaching Foundation’ of the University of Cologne.

Digital feudalism

Anyone who thinks through the supremacy of Alphabet, Meta & Co. will understand why it is such a concern to Andree. For several years now, the advertising budgets for digital media have surpassed those of analogue media.From 2029, digital media will account for more than 75% of advertising expenditure in Germany. By then at the latest, according to Andree, classic editorial media will be too weak for resistance: U.S. platforms would control who gets what information, control political opinion-making and selectively hide or emphasize content.

This is not a science fiction dystopia: Today, Big Tech is already doing everything possible to divert all traffic into its platform silos and keep it there. Inscrutable algorithms display personalized world views to platform users, fuel digital filter bubbles and echo chambers. As a result, societies split into camps and “perceived truths” appear equally alongside reputable sources of information. Journalists have to obey the platform rules on Instagram, TikTok & Co., adapt their coverage on sensitive topics such as sexuality, and watch as Big Tech is becoming less and less interested in presenting journalistic content. Last but not least, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has turned one of these platforms into his private mouthpiece.
According to Andree, a further deterioration of the situation would lead to a transition from a liberal media democracy to monopolistic digital feudalism. How could it get this far? Andree believes that instead of focusing on the main problem – Big Tech is increasingly infiltrating our societies – so far we have focused too much on its side effects: disinformation, hate speech, data protection and surveillance threats.

Meanwhile, the digital corporations have managed to achieve their biggest coup unnoticed: They, whose products now take over the function of newspapers and television, have convinced legislators that they are not media, but merely intermediaries – i.e., infrastructure, such as a telephone network, without responsibility for the content that others distribute through them. However, unlike the telephone network operators, the platforms turn a profit from this content.

Essential gatekeepers

The most powerful Big Tech entrepreneurs still maintain the image of the casual, T-shirt-wearing digital manager with provocative visionary ideas. It is no coincidence that until 2014, Facebook’s company motto was: “Move fast and break things.” And in the political limelight, the companies like to appear cooperative, as OpenAI founder Sam Altman recently did in front of the U.S. Congress. For Andree, these are distractions. In his view, legislation is running behind. The industry shouting “Regulate us!” at the digitally overburdened legislature is like saying “Catch me!” to a person who cannot walk.

Behind the scenes, Big Tech has long been sitting at the control desk at every level of consumption: The U.S. corporations direct the attention of their users (for example via YouTube) in a straight line via Facebook, Instagram and Google to the final purchase decision (Amazon). At each level of this ‘sales funnel’, a monopolist as gatekeeper determines who gets access to the market under what conditions. Anyone who wants to advertise their product on the Internet, for example, cannot avoid Google Ads. Google is taking advantage of this by tacitly raising its auction prices to spruce up its quarterly figures. Andree: “Monopolies control the entire digital path to the transaction. They can specify the conditions as desired.”

That a company like Alphabet now occupies a dominant position in around a dozen markets, with search engines, on-demand videos, advertising, office applications and map services, is not a result of innovations, but of acquisitions. If European and U.S. antitrust authorities had intervened more in the process – like the Commission on Concentration in the Media (KEK) did in the German private television sector – today there would be 50 or 100, rather than a handful of dominant tech companies. And editorial media would not be facing the dilemma of either disappearing into insignificance with their own media centres and websites or entering into a pact with the devil and opening accounts on YouTube, Facebook & Co.

Earning money with criminal content

At first glance, world politics seems to have woken up and is fighting back: In the U.S., anti-trust proceedings are underway against Google because the company is purportedly suppressing competing search engines and illegally dominating the online advertising market. The E.U. recently forced Apple to support standardized charging cables and imposed a 345 million euro fine on the Chinese video platform TikTok. And with a new package of regulations – the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA) – Europe wants to further rein in the power of digital platforms

However, according to Andree, the new laws do not affect the intermediary status. “The approaches are not fundamental enough,” the media scholar is convinced. “They will not change anything at all in the positions of supremacy.” And even with new technical trends such as artificial intelligence, Web3 and Metaverse, those who already have money and power today will benefit.

Playing at eye level

Does that mean all is lost? Not at all! In contrast to other crises humanity is facing, Andree believes: “It is easy to change the current state. If we wanted, we could quickly change the Internet to how it should be: diverse and democratic.” The simplest solution would be to make platforms allow outlinks: hyperlinks that take users to third-party apps and websites outside the platform silo. That would level the playing field for small, new market participants.

Another measure that can be implemented quickly: radical interoperability. Content at all levels – posts, photos, videos, entire follower communities – should no longer be linked to specific platforms, but be interchangeable between them. When someone posts a video on Instagram, a TikTok user should be able to watch it and follow the creator. A positive example of how helpful such open standards are is the email market: Today, it would be unthinkable that a GMX customer could not receive an email from a web.de domain. And the number of competing email providers is huge. Open standards could quickly break the monopolies and create competition.

Finally, the current practice of monetization should be called into question. Currently, platforms may even earn money with punishable content (defamatory speech, slander, Holocaust denial etc.) as long as the content is not subject to a notice & takedown procedure. Those who assume economic responsibility would also have to assume responsibility for the content.
How is it possible to implement such a comprehensive curation for billions of users and generative artificial intelligence? According to Andree, that’s not our problem: “We are constantly turning the problems of the platforms into our problems.” After all, the companies themselves are responsible if their business model does not work.

As simple as these measures may read on paper, they are currently far from being implemented. According to Andree, the lack of societal awareness of the dangers has not resulted in the political mandate to act. That’s why the solution starts with the individual: “We need to promote the debate, talk about it with friends – also on social media.”