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ARTICLE
Digital expansionism and big tech companies:
consequences in democracies of the
European Union
Carlos Saura García 1✉
Big digital companies have become key elements in economy, communication, education, and
politics in 21st century societies. The neutral ideology in their digital platforms, applications,
and services, as well as the exponential growth in their activities can be used by world
superpowers —especially the United States and China—to implement geostrategical
operations, massive social manipulation or influence democratic processes with the objective
of increasing their power and dominance over other nations. The aim of this paper is to state
the different strategies of digital expansionism performed by the United States and China,
and, additionally, to showcase the negative consequences of these strategies on the popu-
lation and democracies of the European Union. The first section of this paper will define the
concepts of digital sovereignty and digital expansionism as well as their importance in 21st
century geopolitics. Next, the important role that big digital companies have on digital
expansionism will be analysed, and the usage of digital authoritarianism and digital instru-
mentarianism performed by the United States and China will be further examined. Finally, the
negative consequences of the implementation of these methods in the democratic systems of
the European Union will be analysed, as well as what possible solutions there might be for
said consequences.
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02924-7 OPEN
1Department of Philosophy and Sociology, Universitat Jaume I de Castelló, 12071 Castelló, Spain. ✉email: saurac@uji.es
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Introduction
In the past two decades, the emergence and development of a
new economic system known as “surveillance capitalism”and
its business model has provoked great changes in various
aspects of western societies (Zuboff 2019). This new economic
system has two main features. On the one hand, the exploitation
of human experience in order to draw value and obtain economic
or political benefits. On the other hand, the accumulation of huge
concentrations of knowledge, wealth, and power by a small group
of big tech companies.
This new form of capitalism and its features have huge negative
effects on societies, especially on civilians’sovereignty, on elec-
toral processes and on the proper performance of democratic
systems, in general (Han 2017,2022; Zuboff 2019). Among the
main weapons of the surveillance, control, influence, and
manipulation of citizens, the most noteworthy are those such as
massive social surveillance (Lyon 2019; Snowden 2019), micro-
targeting (Kaiser 2019; Wylie 2019; Dawson 2021), information
intoxication (Howard 2020; Woolley 2023), the creation of an
artificial public opinion (García-Marzá and Calvo 2022,2024)or
the self-interested management of digital platforms (Bucher 2018;
Moore and Tambini 2018; Dawson 2023).
Big tech companies have a variety of possibilities that have
piqued the interest of governments (Hoffman 2019; Zuboff 2019;
Hoffman and Attrill 2021). This has resulted in governments and
the big tech companies in their countries allying and cooperating
to obtain economic benefits for said companies and political
benefits for the governments (Saura García 2022). Governments
from both the United States (US) and China use the digital
infrastructure of their big national tech companies in order to
carry out digital expansionist practices and, therefore, increase
their control and influence over the society, economy, and politics
of foreign countries (Cave et al. 2019; Webb 2019; Zuboff 2019;
Hoffman and Attrill 2021).
The aim of this paper is to present the negative effects that US
and Chinese digital expansionism might have over the democ-
racies of the European Union (EU). First and foremost, the
concepts of “digital sovereignty”and “digital expansionism”will
be defined, as well as the different strategies carried out by the US,
China, and the EU, and their importance in 21st century geo-
politics. Next, the role of big digital companies on digital
expansionism will be analysed by further examining the phe-
nomena of “digital instrumentarianism”and “digital authoritar-
ianism”. Lastly, the consequences of these two phenomena on the
democratic systems of the EU will be presented, as well as the
potential solutions to said consequences.
Geopolitics of the 21st century: digital sovereignty and digital
expansionism
The fast growth of intelligent digital technologies that allow the
autonomous and semiautonomous processing of large quantities
of data and metadata with the aim of producing inferences,
obtaining predictions, making decisions and generating value,
have provoked great interest in world superpowers (Roberts et al.
2022). Throughout the last decade, the US, China, and the EU
have implemented important strategies of digital sovereignty and
digital expansionism (Roberts et al. 2023).
While the assertion of sovereignty by states represents a
“defensive”mechanism to protect their authority against
various perceived threats, its “offensive”counterpart can be
understood in terms of “digital expansionism”. While
digital sovereignty is defined by “legitimate control over
the digital”, digital expansionism involves using different
“forms of control”over other states. This includes using
coercive capabilities to force compliance, consensual
inducements to incentivise it, and commanding it through
the legitimate exercise of power. (Roberts et al. 2023:9)
As Roberts highlights in this quote, “digital sovereignty”can be
defined as “the legitimate control over the digital”. Further
developing this definition, “legitimate control”alludes to the
ability to influence and exert power over something through a
perceived authority that operates and acts by means of a process
that is generally accepted and that pushes the involved parties to
meet certain instructions, rules or guidelines (Floridi 2020;
Roberts et al. 2021). On the other hand, “the digital”alludes to the
conjunction of data, hardware, software, services, standards, and
rules that comprise the current ecosystem of digital technologies
(Roberts et al. 2023).
Digital sovereignty policies encompass various aspects, such as
regulation and restriction of data processing, exploitation and
transference, limitation of certain content on the internet, or the
prohibition of activities performed by foreign digital companies.
In the current global geopolitical situation, the operations of
digital sovereignty are used to create interdependencies with other
nations, to enhance security and legal harmonisation, to build and
defend economic markets, to achieve autonomy in some sectors
and to yield sovereignty in other sectors in order to create digital
barriers that will lead to a situation of total digital independence
(Roberts et al. 2023).
The main difference between digital sovereignty and digital
expansionism is the direction of their operations. The operations
of digital sovereignty are inward-oriented regarding a nation or
group of nations, with the purpose of affecting its technologically
dependent relationship with other agents, companies, or external
nations. Conversely, the operations of digital expansionism are
outward-oriented and have the objective of generating influence,
increasing control over other nations and/or strengthening
measures taken regarding digital sovereignty.
“Digital expansionism”can be defined as a way of affecting,
influencing, and subordinating foreign nations through “the
digital”. The numerous strategies of digital expansionism are used
to increase or improve the power and dominance of a nation over
another, or to weaken the abilities of a competing nation to exert
its own power (Doshi, 2021). Roberts et al. (2023) explain that
digital expansionism has two main reasons and three key
mechanisms to try to achieve these goals.
The two fundamental reasons for digital expansionism are the
exportation of values and internal protection. On the one hand,
exportation of social, political, and economic values of the nation
that carries out expansionist strategies on other nations is
intended to attain more outstanding geopolitical achievements.
On the other hand, internal protection has the aim of shielding its
citizens, institutions, and economy and to strengthen and support
a nation’s digital sovereignty strategies. It is important to note
that these two reasons for digital expansionism are not mutually
exclusive. For example, in many cases it is possible to increase
internal protection through the exportation of values (Hoffman
2019).
The three key mechanisms regarding digital expansionism are
data exploitation, control through technological infrastructures,
and influence through regulation. The first mechanism refers to
the extraction and exploitation of huge datasets and metadata,
which allows a great deal of economic, social, and political power
to be obtained by big digital companies, and consequently, by the
home nations of these companies (Saura García 2022). Data
extraction can be carried out and promoted in different ways: by
hacking big datasets or performing illegitimate —in many cases
illegal—practices backed by governments of nations for the
obtention of data (Macaskill and Dance 2013; Feldstein 2019;
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Snowden 2019; Hoffman and Attrill 2021); by acquiring private
datasets from citizens in a lawful manner (Zuboff, 2019); and by
influencing the creation of rules regarding the data processing of
other nations or simply infringing upon the rules currently in
effect (Sherman 2020; Hoffman and Attrill 2021; Satariano 2023).
The fast growth and expansion of big digital companies in namely
every context of every world nation have provided these com-
panies with great power and have allowed the enhancement of
their source value system and the mining of a continuous
quantity of data that may allow improving and increasing these
companies’home nation’s control over other nations (Lee 2018;
Kliman et al. 2019; Snowden 2019).
The second mechanism concerns control through technologi-
cal infrastructures. This tool for digital expansionism provides the
expansionist nation with influence and control over other coun-
tries by putting their national companies and the technologies
that they offer into effect. This fact, on the one hand, allows the
modification of the digital infrastructure, the digital public sphere,
and the Internet context of the target nations by matching the
technological standards, the values, and the ideologies of the
nation that performs the technological influence. On the other
hand, it allows an economic link between the target nation and
the expansionist nation; the dominance of the technological
infrastructure of the target nation and its usage in favour of its
objectives; and the prevention of other nations carrying out
similar strategies of technological influence (Lee 2018; Kliman
et al. 2019; Webb 2019; Helberg 2021).
The third mechanism pertains to the influence in the realm of
regulation and governance. The ability to enact, influence or
establish international treaty regulations and regulatory initiatives
with extraterritorial consequences eases data exploitation prac-
tices and influence and control through technological infra-
structures, and enables the enhancement of effectiveness and
efficiency of digital expansionism strategies (Roberts et al. 2023).
World superpowers like the US, China, and the EU have
conducted various types of digital expansionism and digital
sovereignty with different purposes regarding their geopolitical
objectives. In the case of the US, these are based on the expor-
tation of surveillance capitalism, spreading free market values,
and maintaining its economic and political world power. In the
case of China, these are based on safeguarding its national digital
infrastructure, isolating its citizens, increasing its international
and economic power, and spreading its social model, which is
based on surveillance and digital repression. Regarding the EU, its
purpose is to develop and apply digital regulations based on its
foundational values in order to strengthen the freedom of its
citizens, the proper functioning of its democracies and its internal
market, and to defend itself against the expansionist policies of
the US and China. Moreover, these rules are also aimed at dis-
seminating and expanding their digital legislation and regulations
beyond their borders.
The US stands out for carrying out policies focused on digital
expansionism. These policies have the aim of maintaining its
digital, political and economic supremacy worldwide by means of
creating, enhancing, and exploiting the technological dependency
that other nations have on big US tech companies; by increasing
influence in the creation of laws and regulations regarding digital
technologies of other nations; and by limiting digital expansionist
policies from China (Roberts et al. 2023).
These US policies are generally realised in three different ways.
Firstly, protecting and enhancing the surveillance capitalism
business model practised by the GAMAM companies (acronym
that refers to the companies of Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple,
and Microsoft). This is key in order to spread its economic,
political, and social values as well as for the growth of US
economy and the control of other nations’citizens (Zuboff 2019).
Secondly, pressuring other nations (India, Indonesia, the EU, etc.)
to limit them from developing their regulations on protection,
data processing, and data transfer, since these can negatively
impact the business model of its tech companies (Suroyo et al.
2019; Sherman 2020). Lastly, limiting the development of Chinese
tech companies and their infrastructures within its borders, while
it also attempts that this development is minor within its spheres
of influence (Ryan et al. 2021).
In contrast with the US, China promotes policies that focus
both on digital sovereignty and digital expansionism. Regarding
digital sovereignty, China has created a digital infrastructure
based on control, surveillance, and repression of its citizens
through programs focused on media control, digital social credit
systems, and massive social surveillance structures in big cities
(Jiang and Fu 2018; Lee 2018; Qiang 2019). In order to make this
infrastructure happen, China has boosted the growth of big
national tech companies that are strongly interfered with by the
Chinese government, such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, ZTE or
Huawei. It has also developed a strong legislative network
regarding the data exploitation and transference carried out by
foreign tech corporations that makes it very difficult for the
business model of big US tech companies to function properly
(Cave et al. 2019; Ryan et al. 2019; Doshi 2021). Regarding digital
expansionism, China has started the “Belt and Road Initiative
(BRI)”. This initiative seeks to increase China’s economic and
political power internationally by developing a wide network of
both physical and digital infrastructures in various nations which
is supported by big Chinese tech companies. Furthermore, it
seeks to control and dominate other nations through the tech-
nologies used by said corporations (Kliman et al. 2019; Helberg
2021; Hillman 2021).
Finally, the European Union focuses its policies on digital
sovereignty, but also uses them to pursue digital expansionism.
The purpose of the new EU digital sovereignty policies is to face
the negative consequences that digital expansionism (mainly that
of the US, but also that of China) has on citizens, the economy,
and European democracies (Floridi, 2020). Throughout the past
years, a new package of digital regulations
1
has been developed.
On the one hand, these measures aim to regulate the infra-
structure and digital technologies that operate within the EU as
well as the big tech companies that provide and make them
possible, taking into account the foundational values of the EU
(Floridi 2020). On the other hand, they aim to enhance legal
certainty, harmonise the various legislations of EU countries,
develop a consistent digital policy across all countries and
regions, and compliance with the founding values in internal
market activities (Bradford 2020,2023). It is important to high-
light that this package of digital regulations promotes a layered
approach to regulation —the bigger the digital company is, the
more regulation it requires—and creates two different regulatory
environments: one for EU-based corporations and another for
non-EU based corporations operating in the EU (Bradford 2023).
Regarding digital expansionism, the EU implements its expan-
sionist policies through regulatory influence. This is achieved
through the de jure and de facto diffusion and expansion of EU
digital legislation and regulations beyond its physical borders, as
well as, the international expansion of EU-based digital cor-
porations (Scott and Cremona 2019; Bradford 2020,2023).
Big tech companies: from digital instrumentarianism to
digital authoritarianism
The three key mechanisms in digital expansionism (data exploi-
tation, control through technological infrastructure and influence
by means of regulations), both in the US and in China, are closely
associated to activities carried out by big digital companies.
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Mayer-Schönberger and Ramge (2022) present that the way big
digital companies work:
[…] illustrates how control over information in a data-
driven world is shifting in favour of those who generates,
store, and analyze information flows on their digital
platforms. […] Today, data colonialists in Silicon Valley,
and to a lesser extent China, rule much of the world. In fact,
these private corporations shape information access just as
much within the United States, influencing economic
transactions and democratic decision-making. (p.5)
This excerpt highlights how big digital companies and their
activities have acquired a leading role in expansionist policies of
world superpowers. It should be noted that although American
and Chinese digital companies offer similar applications, plat-
forms, and services, they both have the aim of promoting and
developing digital economic, social, and political models that are
completely different in contrast. In the case of the US, it seeks to
promote and apply what is known as digital instrumentarianism,
while China seeks to apply digital authoritarianism.
The US aims to export a form of digital society to the rest of
the world in which citizenship, democracy and economy are
subordinated, on the one hand, to the conditions, mechanisms,
and operations of the business model of surveillance capitalism
and, on the other hand, the laws of the free market. This society
format is founded on the exploitation —and exportation to the
US—of citizens’behaviour through their data, which is per-
formed free of charge and with no supervision or regulation, by a
small group of digital companies that accumulate wealth,
knowledge, and power. This is what is known as digital
instrumentarianism.
Digital instrumentarianism is based on the launch of what is
known as “instrumentarianist”power. Zuboff (2019)defines this
type of power as “the instrumentation and instrumentalization
of behaviour for the purposes of modification, prediction,
monetization, and control”(p.352). On the one hand, instru-
mentation alludes to the spaces and “cyber-physical”
2
ecosys-
tems up and down the length and breadth of the physical and
virtual reality that drive data creation and continuously extract,
transfer, convert and interpret huge datasets. On the other hand,
instrumentalization is associated with the nature by which
surveillance capitalists use huge datasets linked with human
behaviour in order to achieve their own goals and third
parties’goals.
“Instrumentarianist”power does not aim at the transformation
of citizens or the inculcation of certain principles or ideologies
nor the mental and physical domination. It merely seeks to obtain
as much behavioural data from as many measurable actions and
activities as possible —both individually and collectively—with
the purpose of extracting value from the data and monetising the
modification in citizens’behaviour. All of this is done without
having the slightest interest in citizens in an individual or col-
lective level nor in their bodies, activities, thoughts, opinions, or
emotions. The dominance exercised by this power stems from the
hybridisation in today’s hyper-connected, datafied, and algor-
ithmised digital infrastructure of two doctrines: radical indiffer-
ence and radical behaviourism (Zuboff 2019).
On the one hand, the radical indifference doctrine sees citizens
as mere “organisms that behave”, in which there is no interest,
except for the maximisation of instrumentation, so that their
behaviour can be extracted, datafied, and explored. On the con-
trary, the radical behaviourism doctrine perceives citizens as
organisms that are limited within behavioural guidelines that
escape their own control. Its only goal is to observe and analyse
citizens’actions, activities, and behaviour without regard to any
subjective attributions (Skinner 1938,1965,1971).
The joint implementation of digital instrumentarianism, the
surveillance capitalism business model and the advocacy of free
market laws by the US government seek to give rise to a form of
society —subject to an automated instrumental economy that
controls social learning and uses behaviour modification
mechanisms—that has a series of negative impacts on citizens
and democracy (Zuboff 2019). US digital expansionist policies
seek to enhance and export that form of society to other nations
so as to increase its influence, control, and dominance through its
big digital companies.
When it comes to exerting control and government power
within Chinese borders and increasing its control and dominance
over other nations through “the digital”, China is aware of the
threats posed by an open cyberspace that is run by big US digital
companies and based on the surveillance capitalism business
model and the free market laws. In order to keep control over the
cyberspace and “the digital”and increase its government power,
over the last years China has developed an infrastructure based
on repression, censorship, manipulation, and information lim-
itation, which is known as “The Great Firewall”. Therefore, it has
created a panoptic infrastructure of massive social surveillance
and of persecution of opponents (Jiang and Fu 2018; Shahbaz
2018; Cave et al. 2019; Wang et al. 2023). To increase its dom-
inance over other nations, China has promoted and applied what
is known as digital authoritarianism through “the digital”and the
global cyberspace.
Digital authoritarianism alludes to the exportation of Chinese
ideologies, values, moral rules and technology standards
through digital platforms, services and infrastructure in order to
face what is known as “open internet”, which is ruled by the US,
and increase its control and dominance over other nations (Cave
et al. 2019; Hoffman and Attrill 2021). Shahbaz (2018)asserts
that digital authoritarianism “is being promoted as a way for
governments to control their citizens through technology,
inverting the concept of the internet as an engine of human
liberation”. The main way in which China promotes and applies
digital authoritarianism is through its big national digital
companies’infrastructures, platforms and services, which are
Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei, Tencent, ZTE, ByteDance, CloudWalk,
Hikvision, etc. (Cave et al. 2019;Hoffman2019;Ryanetal.
2019,2021).
Through these big digital companies, China aims to boost an
authoritarian proposal of Internet governance; promote that the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s ideology becomes pre-
dominant in the global cyberspace; and enhance its geopolitical
goals (Feldstein 2019; Hoffman 2019; Webb 2019; Hillman 2021).
China’s efforts to manage, control and shape the global ecosystem
of “the digital”are based on the implementation of both coercive
and cooperative tools of control and domination (Hoffman 2019;
Hoffman and Attrill 2021). Regarding these control and dom-
ination tools, Hoffman (2019) states that:
The CCP uses technology to make an unbreakable knot of
the party’s political control and China’s social and
economic development. Developments such as smart cities
are the embodiment of this strategy because they allow the
CCP to blur the line between cooperative and coercive
control. It may seem contradictory, but as already outlined
throughout this paper, the technology supporting the
Chinese party-state’s vision for tech-enhanced authoritar-
ianism doesn’t always involve distinctly coercive and
overtly invasive technologies. In fact, it relies on technol-
ogies that provide services. Service provision helps the party
collect data that’s processed and turned into information
that contributes to other tools for shaping, managing, and
controlling society. (p.25)
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In this excerpt, Hoffman stresses that the application and
distribution of digital authoritarianism does not need to be done
solely through coercive and invasive forms, but also by means of
cooperation-based technologies. This control and dominance
over other nations and its citizens can also be achieved by
increasing user-friendliness, convenience, and desire when it
comes to the usage of certain systems, platforms, and digital
services that have been created, managed, and provided by big
Chinese digital companies. Both coercive and cooperative tools
allow China’s values, culture, and ideology to be applied and
distributed in different ways and to different degrees. They also
allow for the protection of its security and its future strategical
objectives (Hoffman 2019; Erie and Streinz 2021; Hillman 2021;
Hoffman and Attrill 2021; Zhang et al. 2023).
The two models of digital expansionism hide projects with
completely different features. Digital instrumentarianism alludes
to a market project based on an automated instrumentarianist
economy founded on the doctrines of radical indifference and
radical behaviourism that exploits citizens’behaviour in order to
get knowledge that will allow for the control, commercialization,
and monetisation of social learning and behaviour modification
mechanisms, therefore, increasing its financial income (Zuboff
2019). The US promotes digital instrumentarianism by favouring
the deregulation of the technological sector and the free market. It
is used to export and promote to the rest of the world a form of
society in which citizens, democracy and the economy are sub-
ordinated, controlled, and dominated by the power of its big tech
companies.
On the contrary, in the case of Chinese digital authoritarian-
ism, it is the CCP who executes it and manages it through big
Chinese tech companies. Digital authoritarianism is not just
linked to a market project, but also to a social and political project
that seeks to limit, sacrifice, shape, and dominate citizens’free-
dom of behaviour so as to perpetuate CCP’s power as well as
apply and spread Chinese values, culture, and ideology and
protecting China’s security and strategical objectives (Zuboff
2019; Hoffman and Attrill 2021; Ryan et al. 2021).
Instrumentarianism and digital authoritarianism can be sum-
marised into two diverse models that seek to control, shape, and
dominate human, social and political territories. In the case of
instrumentarianism, the power to control, shape, and dominate is
exercised by big US companies, who seek to commercialise and
monetise it without taking into consideration the potential con-
sequences. On the contrary, in the case of digital authoritarian-
ism, this power is exercised by the CCP so that it can apply its
own ideology, moral rules and objectives. Both models entail
great power and knowledge asymmetries, as well as a great threat
to sovereignty in foreign nations (Zuboff, 2019). Its negative
consequences on democratic systems, especially that of the EU,
will be outlined below.
Consequences on the democracies of the EU
With the new package of digital regulations, the EU is trying to
introduce regulations that protect the values, freedom and rules
that support its democratic systems. These regulations seek to
protect EU citizens’privacy and autonomy; demand responsi-
bilities from and control big tech companies; and limit and
reverse the impacts of instrumentarianism and digital author-
itarianism on the democracies of the EU as much as possible.
Despite the legislative efforts from the EU, the US and China —
through their big digital companies—have developed various
intrusive, subversive, and covert mechanisms not only to exploit
and expropriate human experience and social learning through
data and metadata, but also to degrade individual auto-
determination and use behaviour modification mechanisms on
EU citizens in order to ensure their influence, manipulation, and
dominance capabilities.
Big US digital companies have performed several legally
questionable digital expansionist activities related to the control
and dominance of technological infrastructures and data exploi-
tation and exportation with the aim of promoting digital
instrumentarianism. The EU has carried out some investigations
and given the five biggest American digital companies different
types of penalties. The penalties that stick out the most are the
ones given to Google for infringing on the GDPR, illegally
transferring data from Europe to the US and monopolising digital
platforms and infrastructures (Satariano 2021; Commission
Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés 2022; European Data
Protection Board 2022). Amazon and Meta have also been
investigated and penalised for infringing the GDPR and illegally
transferring data from Europe to the US (Schechner 2021;
Satariano 2023). Finally, Apple and Microsoft are being investi-
gated for monopolisation and abuse of its dominant market
position (Dave 2022; Sweney 2022).
The abovementioned activities from the GAMAM companies
entail a blatant violation of the EU regulations and can cause
negative effects on democratic processes (Moore 2018; Mayer-
Schönberger and Ramge 2022). First of all, monopolisation,
control and dominance over the digital platforms and infra-
structures used daily by millions of EU citizens entail a boost in
the behavioural data streams extracted by the GAMAM compa-
nies. Cyberspace monopolisation makes it difficult for citizens to
look for alternatives to the digital platforms and infrastructures
offered by these companies. Therefore, their control and dom-
inance provoke a maximisation of the data and metadata that
these companies extract from citizens and society in general,
prompting a massive social surveillance context (Bartlett 2018;
Fowler 2022).
Second of all, these big companies illegally export that data
from the EU to the US, so that it can be processed there
(Satariano 2023). This exportation is carried out so that they can
perform the exploitation of this data without considering the
European regulations regarding EU citizens’privacy and auton-
omy, and in order to use disruptive artificial intelligence with no
limitations whatsoever. In other words, the GAMAM companies
can exchange, share, and cross information among their various
platforms, services, and applications; analyse, share, and exploit
sensitive citizen data and metadata —such as medical, biome-
trical, ethnic, behavioural, and ideological data—; and use gen-
erative artificial intelligence, stochastic algorithms and learning
technology so as to exploit these datasets.
Lastly, the GAMAM companies use the knowledge acquired
from US data processing, as well as their monopoly position and
control of digital infrastructures and platforms to monetise this
knowledgeanddominanceofcyberspaceandcommercialisethe
possibility of behaviour modification practices and to influence
and manipulate the opinion and ideology of EU citizens. These
practices aim at starting processes like automated computational
propaganda; various kinds of microtargeting; information
intoxication mechanisms; and erosion of public opinion and
creation of an artificialorsyntheticpublicopinion(Howard
2020;Iyeretal.2021; García-Marzá and Calvo 2022,2024;
Woolley 2023).
The various mechanisms used by the GAMAM companies to
maximise digital instrumentarianism efficiency entail a great risk
for the democratic systems of the EU. The GAMAM companies
hold great power when it comes to controlling, manipulating and
modifying European citizens’behaviour, opinions, and ideology,
and through the commercialisation of this power they allow other
actors to influence and manipulate public opinion and electoral
processes (Moore 2018; Da Empoli 2019; Wylie 2019).
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Through big Chinese digital companies, the CCP has also
started various strategies to increase its control and dominance
over EU culture, values, ideology, and democratic processes
(Hoffman 2019; Webb 2019; Hoffman and Attrill 2021). In this
case, Chinese companies have not been penalised for infringing
EU regulations, but they have been vetoed from certain infra-
structures and segments of society and their expansion has been
restrained so that European dependence on their technologies is
limited, as well as CCP’s capacity to control and influence Eur-
opean societies (Floridi, 2020). The clearest examples are the veto
regarding the development of the 5G infrastructure by Huawei
and ZTE (Espinoza 2023; Yun Chee 2023), and the ban on the use
of TikTok —owned by the Chinese company ByteDance—by
employers and politicians of the EU institutions (Sweney 2023).
The CCP has developed a framework of mechanisms and
structures with the aim of profiting from big Chinese digital
companies in order to, on the one hand, analyse and control EU
citizens behaviour through data streams; and, on the other hand,
apply various forms of strategic and political Chinese objectives
on the EU through digital platforms and infrastructures (Cave
et al. 2019; Hoffman and Attrill 2021; Ryan et al. 2021; Zhang
et al. 2023).
This framework is partly based on the CCP intervention in big
tech companies. This group of companies —especially Alibaba,
Tencent, and Huawei (Cave et al. 2019)—are strongly audited by
the CCP. Moreover, out of all the big multinational companies in
China, these companies are the ones with the biggest number of
Secretaries and politicians in their executive teams who are part of
the CCP (Ryan et al. 2019). The abovementioned framework is
also partly based on the cooperation agreements between China
and the big tech companies, and the legislations regarding the
processing of datasets from the companies and the Chinese
government that allow the CCP to use their data streams either
directly or indirectly (Hoffman 2019; Hoffman and Attrill 2021).
Regarding these cooperation agreements, Hoffman (2019)
highlights the case of Global Tone Communications Technology
Co. Ltd (GTCOM), a public company subsidiary of the Central
Propaganda Department of the Chinese government. This com-
pany provides hardware and software services related to trans-
lations for companies like Huawei and Alibaba. However, it
indirectly grants the Chinese government and the CCP with the
possibility of exploiting, processing, and using huge quantities of
data streams derived from their applications, platforms, and
digital services for numerous purposes. In relation to the reg-
ulations regarding the data processing in China, there are two key
points that make it possible for Chinese companies to extract,
utilize, and directly exploit data streams. These two key points are
the privacy policies of Chinese companies and the Chinese leg-
islation regarding data processing.
In most privacy policies of big Chinese digital companies, it is
explained that European data can be exploited and transferred to
a country that is different to that where the data has been
extracted, including China. It is also explained that, from that
moment onwards, that data will be operated by both the legis-
lation of the country of destination and the country of origin (The
Australian Strategic Policy Institute 2021). In regard to this,
Hoffman and Attrill (2021) claim that big Chinese digital
companies:
[…] are committed to protecting personal information, but
acknowledge that they may be required to disclose personal
data to meet law enforcement or state security require-
ments. The definition of what meets the threshold of being
a national security or criminal case can be highly politicised
in the PRC, and the process of definition isn’t similar to
those that occur in a liberal democracy. (p.12)
This excerpt demonstrates that legislation in China is, above
all, a political legislation used as a tool by the government and the
CCP in order to defend, strengthen and expand its power and to
foster the spreading of its digital authoritarianism model world-
wide. Due to this legislation, the CCP and the Chinese govern-
ment have created an infrastructure based on big Chinese digital
companies. This infrastructure allows direct extraction, usage,
and exploitation of their data streams (Hoffman 2019; Hoffman
and Attrill 2021).
The CCP has the ability to access and store huge datasets, to
exploit them and to extract knowledge from them through dis-
ruptive actions and techniques, which are not allowed by the EU
legislation, with the aim of controlling, influencing and manip-
ulating the behaviour, public opinion and electoral processes in
the EU, as well as slowly exporting its culture, ideology and values
through the platforms, applications, systems and services from
companies like Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei, Tencent, ZTE or Byte-
Dance. In essence: “For the Chinese party-state, bulk data col-
lection and AI processing of data are tools for engineering global
consent and shaping global governance in pursuit of its objec-
tives”(Hoffman 2019: 6).
Both the strategies that enhance digital instrumentarianism
carried out by the US, and the digital authoritarianism enhancing
actions carried out by China are based on the same premise:
“Data is power and market dominance is power”. The imple-
mentation of instrumentarianism and digital authoritarianism by
extracting, exporting, and exploiting European datasets as well as
the control and dominance of infrastructures, platforms and
digital services of the EU entail a great impact for European
societies, especially for European democracies.
Massive social surveillance, indiscriminate data exploitation
and extraction, information intoxication, and self-interested
management of digital platforms in a European social context
marked by dependence on digital infrastructures and services and
major knowledge asymmetries ultimately leaves European econ-
omy, politics, education, and democracies defenceless and at the
mercy of the economic objectives of the GAMAM companies or
the political and social objectives of the CCP. These features have
turned big tech companies of the world into the core elements of
a new form of democracy known as surveillance-democracy
(Couldry 2017), in which citizens’characteristics, emotions and
opinions can be analysed and manipulated at all times, which
could result in the citizens becoming mere transmitters of the
interests and objectives of big digital companies (Saura García
2023).
Conclusions
The implementation of strategies like digital instrumentarianism
and digital authoritarianism, which are based on the mono-
polisation of social learning, manipulation of the citizens’beha-
viour with economic or political motivations, the
instrumentalisation of the self-determination of individual citi-
zens, and the creation of a surveillance democracy not only pose a
true threat to the freedom, autonomy and self-determination of
citizens, but also to the proper functioning of the democratic
systems of the EU and to the sovereignty of EU states.
Throughout the last decade, the EU has made great efforts to
encourage digital sovereignty, regulate the activities performed by
big digital platforms and face the digital expansionism of China
and the US. These efforts have succeeded in mitigating some of
the most damaging consequences of digital instrumentarianism
and digital authoritarianism on the EU’s public sphere, public
opinion, and democratic processes, but they have, by no means,
eliminated them entirely. Despite these efforts, the weak state of
the EU’s digital infrastructure and services and the deliberate
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passivity of the US and Chinese governments regarding the
infringement of European regulations through big digital com-
panies in their countries limit the effect of the EU’s policies of
digital sovereignty and digital expansionism and keep the EU
subjugated to US and Chinese interests.
Given the steady development on techniques for data extrac-
tion, exploitation, and analysis, as well as the exponential devel-
opment on the innovations regarding artificial intelligence that
increase the dangers of instrumentarianism and digital author-
itarianism, the EU should continue the development and imple-
mentation of regulatory practices. It should also encourage a
digital context based on the defence and advocacy of its foun-
dational values with the purpose of strengthening its democratic
systems.
Received: 17 October 2023; Accepted: 4 March 2024;
Notes
1 This legislative package is comprised of measures such as the Data Governance Act,
the Data Act, the Artificial Intelligence Act, the Digital Market Act (DMA), the Digital
Services Act (DSA), the AI Liability Directive or the General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR).
2 Spaces and cyber-physical ecosystems allude to hardwares, softwares, devices,
applications and interconnected sensors directed by algorithms that allow the
connectivity of the physical and social reality, including people, animals, processes or
elements and their own behaviours and actions (Calvo 2019).
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Acknowledgements
This study was made possible thanks to the funding received from Jaume I University
through a predoctoral contract (PREDOC/2022/08) and is framed within the objectives
of the Research and Technological Development Project “Cordial Bioethics and Algo-
rithmic Democracy for a Hyper-Digitalized Society”[PID2022-139000OB-C22], funded
by MCIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, EU.
Author contributions
The author wrote and revised the manuscript. The author is fully and solely responsible
for this manuscript.
Competing interests
The author declares no competing interests.
Additional information
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Carlos Saura García.
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