From now on with Federal President
If there was any further proof of how relevant the event has become in the meantime, this Monday morning will take place in the armored truck. With Frank -Walter Steinmeier, a federal president is visiting re:publica for the first time. He makes the opening speech, then lets himself be guided through the halls, hands are shaken and politeness exchanged as if this were the Ifa or a car show. Notorious skeptics will ask: Has the re:publica finally arrived in the mainstream? Did she even sell her soul?
Nice answer: no. More than 20000 people are expected to be at the Berlin "station" on three days next week, as many as ever are network activists and hackers, entrepreneurs and utopians, artists and media makers. And although the former class meeting of Berliner Blogger has long grown into Europe's largest digital conference, the programme planners have taken care that the re:publica also in the 13th. Year charming biotope for curious and niche friends remains. One in which the main stage discusses systems of human -machine relationships, while next door the data protection risks of the networked mobility world are outlined and it is said in parallel on the back left stage: "What can companies learn from Minecraft? "
Besides Steinmeier, a never -before -seen number of top politicians have announced themselves, the density of high -ranking SPD members is particularly striking: Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, Minister of Labour Hubertus Heil and Family Minister Franziska Giffey are coming, and Malu Dreyer, Prime Minister of Rhineland -Palatinate, and Berlin's ruling M Michael Muller and his predecessor Klaus Wowereit. There are so many that they appear in part at the same time. It is fitting that the party recently strengthened its social media team, a consequence of the experience that the temporary "Schulz -Hype" from the Bundestag election campaign 2017 was first triggered online, the "possibilities of the digital world and its methods" after which, according to its own analysis, was "almost grossly neglected" It is not.
Edmund Stoiber meets Rapper Eko Fresh
Also prominent cultural creators will be discussing this year. The writer Sibylle Berg, the actors Katja Riemann, Anna Maria Muhe and Jurgen Vogel, the Berlin rapper Sookee. Satiricist Sophie Passmann plans a lecture entitled "I was a year without a break on the Internet, and I learned that". The meeting of CSU Honorary Chairman Edmund Stoiber with Rapper Eko Fresh should also be entertaining, and they want to discuss the meaning of the European elections.
The biggest star of the last year is back in prison. Whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who spoke 2018 on the main stage about her future plans, was taken into custody in March. She refuses to testify before a U.S. court on Wikileaks. Manning's fate will also be the subject of re:publica. Other priorities include strategies against hate speech and online bullying, Germany's backwardness in broadband deployment, the change in journalism. However, there is also a lot of bizarre, abstract, even bizarre things in the program. The fact t hat the Federal President is coming is no proof of the fact t hat the re:publica has changed in its nature, but of the extent to which digital now penetrates all areas of life. That digital society has long since ceased to exist in analogue societies.
"tl;dr" is this year's motto of the conference, which is Internet talk and stands for "Too long; didn't read". Which, in turn, is ironic and actually a plea for deep research, perseverance and detail obsession. Too much importance should not, however, be attached to the abbreviation. Re:publica -Motti is like the album titles of good pop bands: they should sound as original as possible, each time they have to come from someone else, but in the end they capture at most a fraction of what is in the huge wonder bag.
Of net political struggles
And of course: no re:publica without wounds. Because while some speculate at the Conference on Future Technologies, others look back on the net political struggles of the recent past. And here again, I think the balance sheet will be sobering. Both the drafting of the basic regulation on data protection and the reform of copyright, including the controversial Article 13, had been sharply criticised by network activists. In particular, the adoption of Article 13, many of which assumed that it would lead to drastic cuts in the degree of freedom on the Internet, is considered a defeat. To prevent it, there were well -attended demonstrations across Germany that led to a change of public opinion in the country. The European Parliament nevertheless adopted the law.
Especially the man who has driven the reform of copyright decisively and has repeatedly shown remarkable expertise in the public will now also be a guest at re:publica. The CDU Member of the European Parliament Axel Voss is regarded by the majority as an enemy image, but can nevertheless expect a friendly reception. This also has a re:publica tradition. A few years ago, the then EU Digital Commissioner, and at least equally unpopular, Mr Oettinger, accepted an invitation to a dispute. There were no cakes; on the contrary, they let him finish.(徳囯ASK电容器)