How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley

Marietje Schaake

Int'l plicy Dir., Stanford University's Cyber Policy Ctr
Int'l policy fellow, Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered AI
Fmr. European Parliament member, Netherlands

In conversation with:

Lily Jamali

JRN'07, North America Technology Correspondent
BBC News

Over the past decades, under the cover of “innovation,” technology companies have successfully resisted regulation and have even begun to seize power from governments themselves. Facial recognition firms track citizens for police surveillance. Cryptocurrency has wiped out the personal savings of millions and threatens the stability of the global financial system. Spyware companies sell digital intelligence tools to anyone who can afford them. This new reality—where unregulated technology has become a forceful instrument for autocrats around the world—is terrible news for democracies and citizens.

In this conversation, Marietje Schaake offers a behind-the-scenes account of how technology companies crept into nearly every corner of our lives and our governments. She takes us beyond the headlines to high-stakes meetings with human rights defenders, business leaders, computer scientists, and politicians to show how technologies—from social media to artificial intelligence—have gone from being heralded as utopian to undermining the pillars of our democracies. To reverse this existential power imbalance, Schaake outlines game-changing solutions to empower elected officials and citizens alike. Democratic leaders can—and must—resist the influence of corporate lobbying and reinvent themselves as dynamic, flexible guardians of our digital world.

Drawing on her experiences in the halls of the European Parliament and among Silicon Valley insiders, Schaake offers a frightening look at our modern tech-obsessed world—and a clear-eyed view of how democracies can build a better future before it is too late.

Time will be allocated for Q&A.

"Marietje Schaake sees the intersection of Big Tech and government with a clarity few others can match. Her book 'The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley' is extraordinarily frightening and important. Everyone who cares about the future of individual freedom should read it." Ian Bremmer, Eurasia Group President

Marietje Schaake is a non-resident Fellow at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center and at the Institute for Human-Centered AI. She is a columnist for the Financial Times and serves on a number of not-for-profit Boards including MERICS, ECFR, ORF and AccessNow. She also serves on the UN's High Level Advisory Body on AI.

Between 2009-2019 she served as a Member of European Parliament where she worked on trade, foreign, and tech policy.

Lily Jamali is the North America Technology Correspondent at BBC News. She joined the BBC in September 2024 after three years at public radio's Marketplace where she covered energy and tech. She has also reported for Bloomberg, Reuters, and KQED/NPR’s The California Report. Lily’s award-winning investigative reporting on the second bankruptcy of California utility PG&E has been cited by news outlets and academic journals across the country. She is currently writing a book about bankruptcy for Simon & Schuster. Lily holds a Master’s degree from Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, an M.B.A. from NYU Stern, and a B.A. from UCLA.