Pressure on the government grows, media industry demands measures
As Donald Trump The richest men in the world gathered behind him a few weeks ago. Among them Elon Musk (X), Mark Zuckerberg (FacebookInstagram), Jeff Bezos (Amazon,, Washington Post), Tim Cook (Apple) as well as Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Tikok boss Shou Zi Chew. Some saw it the new influence of the tech bosses on the US administration, others one « knee » in front of Trump and an « attack on democracy ».
Politics must finally be active
In fact, the tech bosses with their digital companies control a significant part of the modern communication world. In their media, conspiracy counts, hate speech and propaganda are spread in their media; An attempt is made to influence elections in Europe. Musk itself expressly recommended the AfD, which is in parts of the right -wing extremist, as a rescue of Germany.
It is all the more incomprehensible for the German media industry that the digital giants are still not appropriately taxed. Funke leadership Tobias Korenke recently confirmed the demand for a digital tax. « It is unbearable that the platform monopolists from the Valley, whose heads we were able to experience in slimy opportunistic humans in the Trump Illication, is hardly to pay in Germany. » Is unbearable. » Politics must finally work, he said. « Some of the digital tax could then benefit the independent media, as in Austria. »
The German Journalist Association (DJV) called on the upcoming federal government to work in the European Council to quickly implement concepts for European digital tax. The European Parliament should also position itself « more decisively against the digital dominance of the United States, but also China » – because, for example, social networks are an important infrastructure for political discourse and essential so that journalistic offers achieved users. As a model for a tax on digital services France called, also from the DJV. The neighboring country issued a corresponding law in 2019. This aimed at companies with annual sales of more than 750 million euros worldwide, of which more than 25 million euros in France. Tax rate: three percent on the sales achieved there.
BDZV fights for a fair competition
From the perspective of representatives of the media industry in Germany, the topic must play a role in the coalition negotiations between the Union and the SPD, which are now going into the decisive round. For the Federal Association of Digital Publisher and newspaper publishers (BDZV), fundamentally, is a fair competition – especially on the net, where Google, for example, benefits from professional studies of professional, serious journalism. For the media houses, this is a destructive business model at their expense. Another argument speaks for a breakthrough in digital tax, especially in view of the planned debt package at a historical amount in Germany: France already took hundreds of million euros with it.
