The Empire strikes Back featuring All Sorted by Machines of Loving Grace at Winterkongress

On February 20th und 21st 2026 Switzerland’s Digitalen Gesellschaft held its annual Winterkongress at the Roten Fabrik in Zurich. Now the videos are online at the media site of the Chaos Computer Club .

At the Winterkongress people of different political and social background meet – after two years in Winterthur the congress returned to the beautiful Rote Fabrik at the shore of Lake Zurich. It is a must-go-to meeting for anyone interested in the social impact of digitalisation in Switzerland.

Many of the talks have been recorded and are now online – add free & track free at https://media.ccc.de/c/dgwk2026 . Many thanks to all the beings who made it possible!

My talk

My talk, a German version of the “All Sorted by Machines of Loving Grace?” talk I presented at the opening of the 39th Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg December 2025, can be watched at https://media.ccc.de/v/dgwk2026-56525-all-sorted-by-machines-of .

The talk is about the human love of stories. And that fascism and cybernetics are stories. And these stories brought us the tale of “artificial intelligence”.

The Empire strikes back

Shortly before the congress Republik journalist Adrienne Fichter reported that Palantir Security, a cooperation that calls itself a security company, part of the empire of Peter Thiel, sued the Republik because of a report of Palantir’s activities in Switzerland.

More of it [in German] Dossier auf der Seite der Republik.

In my talk I reminded that journalism, especially local journalism, is one of the best protection of a free society:

In our society we do have good protection against fascists and other authoritarians
Against corruption and environmental pollution
Against exploitation and injustice:
Independent journalism
Good journalism is an important part of a free society, who warns and protects it
And this is exactly the reason, why fascists and other authoritarians hate it so much and attack it

But – it is no attach of the Republik

It is an attack on independent journalism itself

And therefore it is an attack on the principle of a free society

It is an attack on us all.

It is well and good that people provide money to the Republik
But is is not enough.
No matter where we live, we have to support local journalism, not only the Republik.
Good journalism is in important part of a free society, that warns and protects us.
And we as a society must warn and protect good journalist the same way.
We have to be informed and collectively.

Otherwise they will come for us. Individually. And take us one by one.

And this is what we have to prevent.

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Thank you! 谢谢！