TubingenSpeech

Digitality and Empowerment 2.0: Encoding Empowerment

Digital self-empowerment in the age of AI, DSA and hybrid threats

The following is a discussion from Schoresch Davoodi and Babak Tubis that was delivered at the TDF 2026 - Digitalität und Mündigkeit

Video of the lecture in German. https://youtu.be/bJbJc7pwGkU?si=z1wCFdqyGQ5qfQOs

In an era defined by simultaneous crises — hybrid warfare, AI-driven information manipulation, geopolitical realignments, and deepening societal polarisation — the ability to speak uncomfortable truths has become both rarer and more vital. Authoritarian regimes weaponise digital shutdowns and surveillance, while in open societies, selective outrage, institutional gatekeeping, and well-intentioned paternalism risk narrowing the very spaces where dissent and nuance can thrive.This is the urgent context for Digitality and Empowerment 2.0: Encoding Empowerment, a powerful follow-up lecture by Schoresch Davoodi and Babak Tubis (BlackLonelyWolf). It builds directly on Davoodi’s acclaimed 2025 talk “Digitality and Maturity” (Digitalität und Mündigkeit) at the Tübinger Tage der digitalen Freiheit (TDF), an annual Chaos-community event focused on self-empowerment and digital freedom. Schoresch Davoodi is a political analyst, activist, and foreign policy expert with Kurdish-Iranian paternal and Czech maternal heritage. He serves as Alternate Board Member of Pirate Parties International (PPI) for the 2025–2027 term. His work centres on hybrid threats, information warfare, digital rights, and democratic resilience in an age of uncertainty. He has spoken at events including the Pirate Security Conference, Hack the Promise Festival in Basel, and the Tübinger Tage der digitalen Freiheit 2025. Babak Tubis is a long-serving member of the Pirate movement and current Beisitzer on the federal board of Piratenpartei Deutschland. He focuses on digital civil liberties, individual freedom, inclusive participation, and strengthening Pirate structures.Together, they deliver a clear-eyed analysis that refuses easy binaries. They examine how democracies risk eroding their own openness through fear-driven control mechanisms (such as aspects of the DSA, Trusted Flaggers, or AI regulation), while movements originally dedicated to freedom can inadvertently adopt dogmatic or paternalistic structures exemplified by debates around organisations like HateAid.

Why This Lecture Matters Now The timing aligns closely with PPI’s early 2026 resolution on “Solidarity with the Iranian Freedom Movement and Against Selective Censorship in the Protection of Digital Rights.” It condemned authoritarian digital repression (including Iran’s internet shutdowns amid protests) while warning against selective activism and internal narrowing of debate in digital rights circles. Davoodi and Tubis connect these threads: epistemic sovereignty (the ability to distinguish reality from manipulation in an age of cheap deepfakes and scalable disinformation), the dangers of outsourcing judgment to institutions or algorithms, and the need for “hacker ethics” — understanding and improving systems rather than destroying or blindly regulating them.They draw on thinkers from Hobbes (the digital Leviathan) to Kant (“Have the courage to use your own understanding”) and Hannah Arendt (the erosion of the boundary between truth and fiction). Real problems — disinformation, online harassment, hybrid threats — are acknowledged, but the proposed solutions are scrutinised for their long-term effects on open societies. The lecture also addresses energy geopolitics and “energy transition nationalism,” showing how ideological rigidity can create new dependencies and vulnerabilities — themes resonant with broader Pirate emphasis on resilient, open societies.

Digitality and Empowerment 2.0: Encoding Empowerment Digital self-empowerment in the age of AI, DSA and hybrid threats

Freedom under conditions of uncertainty. When we talk about digital freedom today, we are no longer talking solely about technology. A few years ago, this topic would probably have brought to mind data protection, encryption or surveillance first and foremost. Perhaps also the major platforms and the power of corporations. Today, the issue is something more fundamental. It is about the question of how free societies can remain open at all under conditions of permanent uncertainty. We are witnessing a historic, unique combination of diverse crises. Artificial intelligence is changing the structure of the public sphere, information wars are destabilising trust, and hybrid conflicts have long been attacking democracies below the threshold of conventional warfare. At the same time, geopolitical tensions are reshaping our energy, security and communications landscapes, whilst digital acceleration is further intensifying all these developments. Incidentally, Earth Overshoot Day is marking its 40th anniversary. One often gets the impression that modern societies can hardly find any peace. No sooner is one crisis over than the next begins. And it is precisely under such conditions that the relationship between freedom and security also changes. The desire for order is growing. So is the desire for control. And with both, the temptation often grows to replace social complexity with apparent moral clarity. Thomas Hobbes described this dynamic as early as the 17th century with his image of the Leviathan. People transfer power to the state because they fear chaos. Not because they love authority, but because they fear what they do not know! And it is precisely this dynamic that we are experiencing again today – only digitally. The real danger, therefore, lies not only in democracies being attacked from the outside. The real danger lies in democracies beginning to abandon their own openness out of fear and uncertainty. This is precisely why digital literacy is no longer a technical side issue today. It is a prerequisite for democratic freedom.

The crisis of digital literacy in the digital age

Last year here in Tübingen, the lecture on ‘Digitality and Maturity’ (by Schoresh Davoodi) already addressed the question of how people can retain their capacity for judgement in a society in a state of permanent crisis. At the time, the focus was on excessive demands, chronic stress and the increasing difficulty modern societies face in tolerating ambivalence. Kant’s quote from that time: “Have the courage to use your own understanding.” still resonates with us today. For if one looks at the last few years, one quickly realises: The crisis has not abated. It has intensified – and it has gone digital. We now live in a state of constant simultaneity. The aftermath of the pandemic, war in Europe, geopolitical tensions, information wars, the AI boom, economic uncertainty, energy crises and social polarisation They are all intertwined. Everything is happening simultaneously – and that is precisely what is profoundly transforming societies. As early as 2020, the article on resilience in Germany and Europe argued that Western societies have for too long confused stability with resistance. Efficiency became more important than robustness, optimisation more important than fault tolerance. This applied to supply chains, energy policy and digital infrastructure – but increasingly to the public sphere itself as well. Because resilient systems work differently! They require redundancy, decentralisation, fault tolerance and the ability to self-correct openly. This also applies to democracies! Democracies do not remain stable because they are perfect. They remain stable because they can correct mistakes. Yet it is precisely this ability that is coming under increasing pressure. We used to talk mainly about digital sovereignty. Today, we must also talk about epistemic sovereignty. The term ‘epistemic’ comes from the philosophy of knowledge. It describes how people perceive reality, form knowledge and contextualise this within society. In other words, it refers to the ability to independently judge what is reality. To be able to distinguish between belief and reality. Who actually determines what becomes visible in our world? Who controls narratives, shapes public discourse and decides which information appears legitimate and which does not? These questions are of central importance in the age of AI. For artificial intelligence is changing not only individual technologies, but the very structure of the public sphere itself. Texts, voices, images and videos can now be generated artificially. In the past, it took months to produce a film for the cinema that appeared realistic but was recognisably fiction. Disinformation campaigns required considerable human and technical resources. Today, algorithms can take over a large part of this. Deepfakes are now cheap and quick to produce; manipulation is becoming scalable and propaganda can be easily automated, with the result that many people are no longer able to distinguish between reality and fiction immediately and reliably. This gives rise to a new form of epistemic uncertainty. People are increasingly losing confidence in their ability to distinguish with any certainty at all between what has been manipulated or entirely artificially created and what is actually true. As early as the last century, Hannah Arendt – a historian, political scientist and philosopher who fled to the US to escape the Nazis – described something very similar. Totalitarian systems do not destroy people first. First, they destroy the boundary between truth and fiction. They do not do this by making every single lie credible, but by eroding trust in what is true! This is where dogmas come in, because dogmas provide a sense of security when people feel insecure. In times of crisis, people seek guidance, moral clarity and a sense of belonging, and dogmas fulfil precisely this need. But that comes at a cost! For dogmas defy open scrutiny. Anyone who disagrees is quickly labelled a troublemaker. Those who qualify their views are accused of relativising. And anyone who asks questions comes under pressure to justify themselves. This is precisely why dogmas are so dangerous for open societies, because a democracy does not thrive on everyone holding the same opinion; it thrives on the fact that dissent remains possible. Hybrid conflicts and the erosion of reality In articles on hybrid conflicts and information warfare, I (S. Davoodi) have for years sought to describe how modern conflicts are no longer waged solely by military means. Today, hybrid conflicts operate simultaneously on infrastructural, psychological, cultural, digital and epistemic levels. The 2021 ‘Toolkit for Hybrid Conflicts’ described how information warfare, economic dependencies, disinformation and cultural polarisation are increasingly merging. And it is precisely this development that we are witnessing everywhere today. Russian information operations surrounding the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine have shown that modern disinformation campaigns often do not even need to generate approval. The aim is often something else: destabilisation. Trust is to be systematically destroyed. Trust in institutions, the media and democracy itself is to be undermined – and eventually even trust in the possibility of a shared reality. And that is precisely why the digital space has now become a geopolitical space. This dynamic is now also evident in waves of digital mass fraud, such as the smishing campaigns from China in early 2026. Such operations are not merely cybercrime. They attack societal trust in the long term. For if communication itself is permanently manipulated, at some point people’s relationship with the digital public sphere as a whole will also change. The digital Leviathan Whilst authoritarian states deliberately export disinformation, the governments of Western democracies often react reflexively by introducing more control. DSA, Trusted Flagger, AI Act and platform regulation. Of course, real problems exist. Disinformation, manipulation and digital intimidation are real phenomena. But democracies must be extremely cautious when they begin to centrally manage truth infrastructures. For any infrastructure built to combat supposedly harmful content can be used against legitimate dissent. This is not a conspiracy theory, but historical experience. – Note: Jews in Holland This is particularly evident with terms such as ‘digital violence’. Of course, real digital harassment and intimidation exist, but terms create power! Those who define terms often also define the boundaries of legitimate public discourse. And that is precisely where a dangerous development begins, for democracies must not merely tolerate dissent as long as it remains convenient. The broken promise of freedom on the internet It is important that we remind ourselves every day just how precious the freedom of our digital space is. Perhaps even more so today than a few years ago, when we took to the streets as a movement and even became visible on the political stage. We should constantly remind ourselves that the internet was originally an absolute promise of freedom. A space in which status, background and institutions were meant to lose their significance. It was not the person that should count, but the argument. It was not the loudest who won, but the level-headed. Not the one who shouted and heckled the loudest, repeatedly spouting their dogma, or who took refuge in supposed technical solutions in an attempt to make people forget their own needs by endlessly repeating their dogma. Particularly within the internet movement, we should be aware that by retreating into technocratic minutiae, we end up viewing certain assumptions as absolute. And this absolutist rigidity blinds us to people and their needs. People take a back seat to the plan, to technology. This development is dangerous because, in the end, people disappear behind supposed necessities and maxims. Many early internet movements in particular thrived on this idea – of openness, counter-public spheres, anonymity and the conviction that free societies must be able to withstand vigorous debate. But platform logic has fundamentally changed this public sphere. Today, algorithms of sensationalism dominate. Complexity loses out to simplification, nuance loses out to moralism, and polarisation generates reach. As a result, the character of online activism itself has changed and continues to change. Many digital freedom movements were originally pluralistic, rebellious, grassroots! Today, we often see something different: institutionalisation, pressure to conform, moral homogenisation and an increasing alignment with state or quasi-state control mechanisms. There is a website https://grassrootsonline.org/ Online activism, which once challenged power, is in some cases beginning to decide for itself which positions are still considered legitimate and which are not. This is precisely where this paradoxical development, which can now be observed in many Western democracies, becomes apparent. For freedom movements are not automatically immune to authoritarian temptations. This is precisely where last year’s criticism of the taming of internet policy came in. The HateAid case serves as a cautionary example of this. The point is not to downplay digital harassment or to leave those affected to fend for themselves. People need protection from targeted intimidation, threats and digital violence. But the crucial point is another:

When independent internet policy actors become embedded in state-funded, regulatory-privileged and institutionally integrated structures, their character changes! A movement that sought to hold power to account can become a structure that itself becomes part of the power architecture. That is exactly what happened with HateAid. That is the true taming of the digital movement. Not the open attack on digital freedom movements, but their gradual integration into the existing power architecture. Not through open repression. Not through a ban. But through integration, funding, access, recognition and the temptation to switch from the uncomfortable role of the critic to the comfortable role of a responsible stakeholder. But anyone who moves too close to the apparatus they are actually supposed to control eventually loses the ability to fundamentally question that apparatus. In the case of HateAid, this very tension became apparent: an organisation that originally argued for protection against digital violence becomes, within the framework of the DSA, a privileged actor in a system of accelerated content reporting. Consequently, its role shifted from civil society support to a quasi-regulatory function. This is exactly what happened to the block wardens in the Third Reich, and in China the digital version still exists today. And as soon as that happens, it is no longer just about helping those affected. It then also becomes about power over visibility, interpretation and the boundaries of legitimate speech. That is the point at which internet policy risks losing its rebellious spirit. It is tamed by no longer causing disruption. By no longer standing against the improper use of power, but sitting alongside it. By no longer asking whether a system is free, but only how to manage it more efficiently. Yes, one can object – and with good reason – that hate and incitement are bad. But hate and hate speech do not disappear when you filter them. That merely makes them invisible! You cannot ban hate, because it is a deeply human emotion. From the very beginning, we have had to learn how to reconcile our individual feelings with life in a society. This means we have had to, and still have to, grapple with this. It is part of our human nature. Online filters or NGOs such as HateAid and the like, posing as ‘trusted flaggers’, would have us believe that they are taking on this work for us. But we cannot relinquish our own responsibility. What is filtered does not disappear, but instead becomes invisible and continues to grow in secret. It is the deadly calm on the volcano that we know from autocracies, which can then erupt with deadly force. As democracies, we should have better ways of dealing with this. Because refusing to see things does not make them any less real.

That is precisely why the 2025 lecture held here in Tübingen, ‘Digitality and Maturity’, was not an isolated lecture, but a conceptual precursor to today’s debate. It already addressed digital exhaustion, hybrid threats, dogmas, peer pressure and the question of whether the strongest defence against disinformation is really a stronger state – or rather a mature citizen. A few weeks later, this development also became clear in the political arena. Suddenly, the question was no longer just how to defend digital freedom, but how a liberal movement can prevent itself from becoming technocratic and epistemically authoritarian in the face of a hybrid threat. The fact that the Pirate Party cannot simply return to its digital niche was described in “Pirate Party: From the niche back into the political debate”. The central message is to uphold freedom, data protection and transparency and to reinterpret them in the context of hybrid threats: capable of defending itself, resilient and European. This is necessary to update the old Pirate values – which remain valid – in a world where we have long had to defend our digital freedom in terms of security policy, geopolitics and society! At the end of 2025, a guest article on migration policy appeared within our political sphere. The text was nuanced, well-argued and written from personal experience. The content was repeated a few times and required careful consideration. What followed, however, was remarkable, because the actual reaction was not initially debate or counter-arguments, but a moral escalation. Distance-taking, public outrage, demands for the text to be removed, social pressure, and the implicit expectation that certain positions should neither be discussed publicly nor even thought. If ‘concerns’ were nevertheless expressed, the individuals in question – very much in the spirit of Orwell’s 1984 – were to be held to account. That is precisely the real danger. Free societies rarely fail because people hold different opinions. They fail because, at some point, certain questions are no longer allowed to be asked. What is particularly interesting is that it was less the specific conflict itself than the speed with which moral camps formed and spaces for debate suddenly narrowed and the matter-of-factness with which some people now believe that certain perspectives should no longer be discussed at all for protective reasons. That the best way to protect people is to keep them in a state of immaturity. Anyone with an understanding of history should be aware that history has repeatedly provided us with the same clear answer. That is why it is so important that we, as democrats, keep this in mind. Just because something is uncomfortable does not mean it lies outside the democratic spectrum. It may lie outside one’s own personal comfort zone, but it is nonetheless within the bounds of democratic discourse. If personal moral sensibilities become the guiding principle of universal discourse, we will end up with a monotonous, censored, uniform and therefore unfree society and world. Everyone should be aware of the consequences that will arise from this. A history book can help provide the answer. The reaction of the international Pirate movement in early 2026 was therefore remarkable and significant, as the General Assembly of Pirate Parties International adopted a resolution at that time entitled: “Solidarity with the Iranian Freedom Movement and Against Selective Censorship in the Protection of Digital Rights”. What was remarkable about this was not only the solidarity with the Iranian freedom movement, but above all the fact that the global Pirate movement was compelled at all to reaffirm fundamental liberal principles once again and explicitly. The resolution did not merely condemn the digital repression practised by authoritarian regimes such as that in Iran. It also explicitly criticised Western tendencies towards selective content control and warned against mechanisms that restrict open spaces for debate. Of particular importance here was the idea that freedom movements can only credibly defend universal human rights if they also allow for pluralistic internal debates. That is why, with this resolution, the PPI expressly recommended that its member parties promote open and pluralistic internal debates and avoid selective activism. We believe that this is precisely the crux of the matter. For the real danger does not begin with state censorship. It begins much earlier – where people start to discipline themselves intellectually, where the space for debate narrows morally, where conformity becomes more important than insight, and movements that originally sought to defend openness begin to narrow their own internal boundaries of what can be said ever further. This is precisely why this international statement was important as a conscious, freedom-affirming counter-signal to all those committed to this cause. As a reminder that open societies only remain open if people are prepared to tolerate dissent – even when it becomes uncomfortable. Hack the System – Hacker ethics instead of revolutionary romanticism Last October, I (S. Davoodi) was invited to the Hack the Promise Festival in Basel. The title of my talk was: “Hack the System, at least a little. How should one behave in the tension between freedom and autocracy?” The announcement text alone sparked considerable outrage in advance. Why? Because the idea that Israel’s resilient civil society could serve as a model was seen as incompatible with one’s own personal dogma in today’s world.

That was precisely what was interesting. For anyone who actually listened to the talk quickly realised that it was not about authoritarian fantasies or nihilistic revolutionary romanticism. Ultimately, the lecture posed the question of whether modern societies today need hackers rather than revolutionaries. In other words, people who understand systems, improve them and make them resilient – rather than seeking to destroy them blindly. It was never about destructive hacking or ‘chaos for chaos’s sake’, but about the question of how free societies can regain agency without becoming authoritarian themselves. For that is precisely the real challenge of our time. Many people sense that systems are becoming increasingly complex, opaque and distant. Algorithms structure visibility, platforms shape public discourse, AI simulates reality, and and states regulate information spaces. At the same time, more and more people feel politically powerless. That is precisely where the original meaning of hacking begins. Hacking did not originally mean destruction, but understanding. – But who am I telling this to! Opening black boxes, revealing dependencies, analysing systems, deciphering power and regaining room for manoeuvre. That was once the true hacker ethic: not nihilism, but radical enlightenment. That is what we need again today more than ever, what we are lacking, what must be reclaimed!Geopolitics, energy and moral narrowing These dynamics are not limited to internet policy alone. They are now also manifesting themselves in the geopolitical sphere – particularly in the field of energy policy. The energy transition is no longer merely a matter of climate or economic policy. It is increasingly a matter of geopolitics. The technology for modern electricity generation involves international dependencies – on rare earths, critical minerals, battery technologies, supply chains for solar installations to digitally controlled industrial processes. This is precisely where Russia and China have shown us how things work, as China now plays a central role in all the areas listed above. Yes, theoretically we could have had these things listed above in Europe too, but it was thought that economic cooperation would lead to stability in the world. The Taiwanese DSET report “Unveiling the Hidden Agenda Behind China’s Green Ambitions” describes very precisely how China is attempting to exploit the green transition not only economically but also geopolitically. Whoever controls supply chains also controls political manoeuvre in the long term – or who owns most of the world’s ports? The article “Geopolitical Energy Dependencies”, written on this subject by Alexander Kohler, foreign policy spokesperson for the Pirate Party, provides a brief insight. This highlights the European dimension of the debate. For the question is no longer simply how we generate energy. The real question now is on whom Europe will depend in the future. And that is precisely why it is important to bear in mind: The energy transition must not be allowed to overshadow the turning point in history. The energy transition here in Germany must be conceived alongside the turning point in history, as a joint European project! For freedom requires resilience. And resilience in times of geopolitical crisis also means strategic independence, particularly when it comes to the energy Europe needs.

Germany, in particular, has long remained stuck in national and ideological ways of thinking on this issue. For decades, the German energy debate was imbued with moral overtones. This made it possible, at some point, to define certain positions not as a legitimate part of an open energy policy debate, but as a moral deviation. A green version of the sale of indulgences! This was particularly evident in the case of nuclear power. We are not concerned here with nostalgic technology policy or romanticised fantasies of progress. For me, nuclear power is rather a symbol of an evidence-based and geopolitically responsible energy policy. For the ability to consider industrial strength, security of supply and strategic resilience together. Germany’s nuclear phase-out was not merely a technical or energy policy decision. It was an expression of a specifically German ‘special path’ that systematically underestimated the geopolitical consequences. The debate’s ideological focus exclusively on nuclear energy has contributed significantly to Germany becoming heavily dependent on Russian gas, and whilst Europe is now trying to break free from these dependencies, new asymmetrical dependencies on China have already emerged. So the problem has not gone away; it has simply shifted! That is precisely why I consider the concept of ‘energy transition nationalism’ to be so important. By this I mean an ideologically narrow, nationally conceived ‘special path’ in energy policy that systematically ignores geopolitical realities. The term describes a mindset that separates energy policy from security, foreign and resilience policy, whilst pretending that Germany can make its energy policy decisions in isolation from Europe and the geopolitical situation. That is precisely where the problem lies, because Europe has long since entered a new era of shared security policy, and Germany is lagging behind. Energy transition nationalism often thinks in terms of domestic political identities rather than European categories of resilience. It prioritises ideological purity over strategic robustness. This is precisely what has given rise to these asymmetrical dependencies! Dependence on Russian gas was no historical accident. It was the result of a political culture that believed it could replace geopolitical risks with moral certainties.

Such a mindset poses massive problems in a world of hybrid conflicts. In a world of asymmetric dependencies and in a world where authoritarian regimes increasingly view and use energy, supply chains and infrastructure as geopolitical weapons. Debates these days are often conducted emotionally, rather than taking a clear look at the facts and linking them together correctly. One need only think of the elephant and the five blind men. As soon as one points out geopolitical dependencies on China or addresses the strategic consequences of German energy policy, strong moral defensive reactions arise extremely frequently. This happens not because the risks could be objectively refuted, but because parts of the progressive milieu increasingly treat the energy transition as a morally sacrosanct domain. Criticism is quickly perceived not as legitimate analysis, but as a moral deviation from a consensus that is supposedly without alternative. - One need only think of our former Chancellor. This is precisely where the same dogmatic dynamic begins to emerge that can now be observed in many Western debates: complexity is imbued with moral significance, geopolitical dependencies are suppressed, and criticism no longer appears as a necessary part of democratic self-correction, but as a disruption of an ideological consensus. The real problem is therefore not technology. The real problem is epistemic narrowing. So it is not about opinions, because opinions are like …

It is about the deeper question of which perspectives, analyses and conclusions a society still accepts as legitimate and conceivable at all. This refers to a situation in which societies engage in formal discussion, but do so in a superficial manner, without rethinking the issues. Certain questions are then no longer regarded as legitimate analysis, but already as moral suspicion. Conclusions no longer appear open to discussion, even though they are factually relevant. Geopolitical or societal risks are not refuted objectively, but are made culturally taboo. Epistemic narrowing therefore does not simply mean a difference of opinion. It means that the boundaries of what still appears publicly conceivable, sayable or legitimately analysable are becoming increasingly narrow. This is particularly dangerous in times of crisis. We see this in the debates surrounding immigration, nuclear power and a sustainable, stable energy supply, questions of war and peace as well as who is allowed to participate in our society freely and with dignity? How do we want to shape the future of work? Which ways of life are legitimate? Who are we allowed to love? What are we allowed to wear? What values and norms do we wish to express?

Resilient democracies, resilient political parties and, ultimately, responsible citizens do not need artificial intellectual homogeneity. They need the ability to understand contradictory information, and, if necessary, to tolerate it, to analyse risks openly and to discuss uncomfortable realities rationally and calmly. Democracies do not become more resilient when they morally shut down difficult debates. They become more fragile. They never do.

Encryption, resilience and democratic self-empowerment

This is precisely why we need freedom – not just technically, but above all socially. The question is no longer simply who controls data. Alphabet, Amazon or Meta, and also ByteDance, Baidu, Tencent, Xiaomi, Lenovo, BYD or Deepseek The real question now is whether we, as free societies, still have enough resilient spaces in which independent thinking remains possible. Open source in general and open standards are therefore not merely technical tools. They are essential for a democratic infrastructure. Whoever controls communication spaces also controls spaces for discourse in the long term. Encryption is therefore not just a technology, but also a necessity for our freedom. This issue is particularly crucial in the age of hybrid conflicts, because authoritarian systems always seek to control all territories. They seek to control information spaces, spaces of reality and, ultimately, spaces for thought and debate. What they cannot control must be banned! That is why democracy today needs more than mere promises of security. It needs democratic self-empowerment. It does not need a “preacher of the one and only truth”, as the journalist Caroline Emcke was dubbed by Cicero magazine! By refusing to engage in discourse in this way, one ends up trapped in one’s own dogma, which, as a maxim, permits only one’s own categorical imperative. Every democrat should be clear on this: “The cornerstone of our democracy is free debate”. By this I mean the ability of free societies to actively defend their openness without becoming authoritarian themselves. But democratic self-empowerment also means that citizens do not remain merely passive consumers of state order.

It means that people must learn once again to understand systems, to assess risks independently, and not to outsource responsibility entirely to institutions, algorithms or moral authorities.

Open black boxes. Analysing power structures. Make dependencies visible. Understand technologies. In doing so, we regain our social agency, and that is why hacker ethics remains so relevant! Not as a romanticised subculture. But as a democratic stance. At its core, this is democratic resilience. The debate over the real-name requirement illustrates this very clearly: anonymity protects not only privacy, but also dissent. Historically, it has always been dissenting voices, minorities or the politically persecuted who have relied on secure communication. Free societies therefore need spaces where people can think, doubt and disagree without having to fear constant social or political sanctions. That is why anonymity serves as a democratic safeguard, particularly in polarised public spheres. Resilient societies are not created through total control or bans. They are built on robust institutions, resilient citizens and a public sphere that views dissent not as a threat, but as a prerequisite for democratic discourse. Resilient democracies are built by discerning, truly responsible individuals. People who can tolerate uncertainty and conflict and do not immediately perceive dissent as a threat or a personal insult. This is precisely where the circle closes on the question of maturity. For ...Maturity as a democratic practice … ultimately, the state is ourselves.

Hobbes calls it the Leviathan – an artificial construct to which people transfer power so that security is possible at all but the Leviathan must never become a guardian. Security without freedom leads to total control, and freedom without responsibility ends in chaos.

Maturity means balancing both at the same time. Freedom without responsibility destabilises societies. Security without freedom stifles them. We cannot outsource responsibility not to platforms, not to NGOs, not to AI systems, and not to moral certainties. Democracy only works if people are prepared to think for themselves. Especially in uncertain times, we need enlightenment. Because ultimately, it is our own minds and our ability as human beings to independently assess things as true and possible. Even if an AI gives us ‘results’, ultimately we as humans must decide whether to accept these results as ‘true and possible’. An AI is always 110% convinced of itself! Maturity is no longer an abstract virtue today. It is essential for democratic participation. To achieve this, we need a society that has been empowered!

Closing statement

Dogmas promise guidance and security. But open societies do not thrive on security alone, nor on freedom alone. They thrive on the ability to understand contradictions, to correct mistakes, and not to confuse loud people with competent ones. Security alone suffocates democracy and freedom. Dogmas deprive the discourse vital to democracy of the oxygen our democracy needs to survive and grow. Maturity also helps us to protect ourselves intellectually. To keep our brains and the discourse vital to our democracy in good shape. That is why we need the ability to encrypt our spaces of freedom – not to hide from the world, but so that free thought can survive.