Uncovering Big Tech’s sphere of influence
Fri 17 April 2026
17:00
Free
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Big Tech’s power now stretches far beyond the online world. These companies provide infrastructure and investment across key strategic sectors - from health and public services to oil, defence, entertainment, and the media. As their influence expands, so does their ability to shape public discourse, policy, regulation and even press coverage, often in ways that can undermine the public interest.
This panel will reveal how Big Tech exerts power well beyond traditional lobbying. Drawing on investigative work from Europe and Latin America, panellists will unpack the tactics, networks and methods used by some of the world’s most powerful corporations to influence governments, industries and public debate. Panellists will also share the collaborations, skills and investigative tools that have helped expose these practices.
By exposing these hidden dynamics, the session will give audiences a clearer picture of how power operates in the tech industry - and why journalism remains essential to holding it to account.
Moderated by Carole Cadwalladr.
Sponsored by Luminate.
Modified more than a month ago
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Carole Cadwalladr
Carole Cadwalladr is a renowned Pulitzer-nominated journalist for The Guardian, feature writer for The Observer, and Cambridge Analytica investigator. She formerly worked at The Daily Telegraph, and was nominated for numerous Press Awards. Cadwalladr was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for National Reporting in 2019, receiving praise upon her investigation and coverage into Cambridge Analytica and its role in Brexit. Cadwalladr’s sheer dedication in exposing a nexus of corruption that resulted in Mark Zuckerberg being called before Congress, and exposing Cambridge Analytica’s role in mass-harvesting data to influence elections (Brexit and Trump), goes far beyond the question of Remain or Leave. Her investigation also interrogates the role we have been puppeteered to play in a 2017 Britain that took its first step into an undemocratic world. In April 2019, Cadwalladr gave a TED talk, Facebook’s role in Brexit – and the threats to democracy, regarding her the links found between Facebook and the Brexit election. This talk led to worldwide acclaim but it also sparked a three year long lawsuit which was won by Carole in June 2022. This case was one of several brought against her and other leading journalists and they are thought to be motivated by powerful individuals and firms to tie up the press in expensive and time consuming legal defenses (these are called SLAPP suits). Also in 2019, she was featured in the acclaimed Netflix documentary The Great Hack – this Bafta nominated film explored the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, produced and directed by Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer. Cadwalladr has won other awards, including the British Journalism Awards: Technology Journalism Award in December 2017 and The Orwell Prize for political journalism in 2018. She is the author of The Family Tree, published in 2006 and was shortlisted for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize. She is currently at work on a new book.
Margarida Silva
Margarida Silva conducts research on the power of Big Tech. Before joining SOMO she researched and campaigned against the political influence of Big Tech and other corporate sectors over EU policy-making at Corporate Europe Observatory. Margarida holds a Master’s Degree in Political Communication from Goldsmiths, University of London, and a Bachelor’s in Communication Sciences, specialised in Journalism, from the Universidade do Porto.
Natalia Viana
Natalia Viana is the co-founder and executive director of Agência Pública, Latin America’s largest nonprofit newsroom. She leads long-term investigations and multimedia projects about human rights violations and her team has won 80 awards for its excellence in journalism. A 2022 Nieman Fellow at Harvard, she is the author and co-author of five books about political violence and social issues in Latin America. Her latest, O Vazamento (""The Leak"") brings a personal perspective of the WikiLeaks release of US Diplomatic Cables in 2010. Natalia is a board member of the Gabo Foundation, an organization founded by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez dedicated to promoting better journalism and the stimulation of creativity, of the Center of Media Integrity of the OAS, of CLIP, the Latin American Investigative Journalism Center, and of Conectas Direitos Humanos, Brazil's largest Human Rights NGO.
Bram Vranken
Festival Internazionale del Giornalismo
Il Festival Internazionale del Giornalismo di Perugia è un evento annuale che riunisce professionisti dei media, esperti di comunicazione e appassionati di informazione da tutto il mondo. Si svolge nel centro storico di Perugia e offre conferenze, dibattiti, workshop e opportunità di networking sui temi più rilevanti del giornalismo contemporaneo.