Joana
Cotar
Digitalisation
Policy
German
Bundestag, February 21, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/83, p. 9633
[Joana Cotar is an Alternative für Deutschland
Bundestag member from the central German state of Hessen. She is a
communications manager and since 2016 has been the AfD’s social media manager.
She here responds to a government paper on digitalisation policy.]
Right honorable Herr President. Worthy colleagues.
Digitalisation formation, Arbeit
4.0, Gigabit Society, Big Data, Disruption – buzz words which must not fail
to be somewhere in any Bundestag speech. You mean to say: We have understood.
The government concerns itself with itself.
The speeches sound good, the promises are big. Yet the reality
unfortunately appears otherwise. The important defining themes of
digitalisation are actually not taken seriously by this government. That is
quite clear in this transformation paper. It is mere piecework, not a
coordinated strategy and is symptomatic of the government’s digital policy.
In Germany there is no digitalisation ministry in which all the
threads run together; each cooks his own soup. There is a digital state
ministry without its own budget; a section for digital policy in the
Chancellor’s office; a digital cabinet and a digital council. In all ministries
there are countless consultants, sections, projects, commissions and agents
which concern themselves with digitalisation. All want to join in the
conversation and none supervises. And that is exactly the principal reason why
all the pretty promises in digitalisation matters, which we have heard for
years, have not been fulfilled. Declarations on any of the principal matters,
ladies and gentlemen on the government bench, actually appear otherwise.
An example. Year after year, the government promised us high-speed
internet for all. In 2009 Angela Merkel promised “broadband coverage for all by
2010”; in 2010 was that promise again converted. The Chancellor then promised
that by 2014 75 percent of all households should have “at a minimum, 50
megabits” at their disposal. Soon she admitted that nothing would come even of
that. Then a new promise: By 2025 at the latest, Germany with gigabit internet
would have the best digital infrastructure in the world. And now we know that
not even that this goal will be reached. A declaration of bankruptcy, dear
government.
In international comparison of internet speed, Germany is in 25th
place, behind countries like Roumania and Latvia. For mobile phone, it appears
not much better; that every citizen knows who has despaired of conducting a
long-distance telephone call while on the road.
One of the most important themes of the present time: Cyber
security. Without cyber security, this beautiful new world is worth nothing.
Wishing to strengthen cyber security, the government yet again creates an
agency; we certainly have too few of those. At the same time, the government
not only fails to close known security gaps in its products, but rather uses
them, indeed knowing what kind of damage can be effected by such exploitations.
Backdoors in soft- and hardware will not be rejected. The surveillance must
ultimately become comprehensive. With your permission, security does not thusly
increase; you thusly drive the theme of cyber security to the wall, ladies and
gentlemen.
When I then read that the paper also addresses the internet and
wants to strengthen media competence, then I propose that we begin both here in
the Bundestag and at the EU level. He who in all seriousness wishes to destroy
the freedom of the internet with the introduction of upload filters, wishing to introduce censorship in the grand
manner, because he does not understand that algorithms have been completely
unsuitable for the identification of violations of creators’ rights, then in
digital matters he should simply hold his tongue, dear colleagues of the Union
and SPD.
In the coalition contract you have rejected upload filters as
being disproportionate and have fallen down at the EU level, agreeing to the
application of exactly these same filters. A petition with almost 5 million
signatures did not interest you. Complaining e-mails from young people were
ignored and, ja, more than that,
these people were selectively denigrated as bots or as a mob. Shame on you,
ladies and gentlemen. Shame on you to the ends of the Earth [in Grund und Boden].
Your coalition contract is not worth the paper it is written on
and this vision-less transformation “strategy” for digitalisation is
unfortunately nothing other than lots of words, scattered individual measures
with little behind it. You do not thusly bring Germany to the forefront and the
citizens are yet again left with the trouble.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
