Big Tech as the Medieval Church
The medieval Church wasn’t just (or primarily) a religious institution: it also provided civil infrastructure to large parts of Europe. Monasteries preserved and copied the manuscripts that contained the accumulated knowledge of the civilization. Other parts of the Church maintained the hospitals and schools, and operated the record-keeping systems that kept track of births, deaths, marriages, and property transfers—the events on which legal and economic life depended.
What the Church got back (besides power) was the tithe. A tithe was not a voluntary donation made in gratitude for spiritual services. It was an obligation levied on agricultural production, enforced through ecclesiastical courts, and owed regardless of the individual’s relationship with, or opinion of, the Church. Every household paid the Church approximately one-tenth of its productive output; this was a structural feature of the economic system, not as a transaction.
Today, the App Store charges a thirty percent commission on every transaction made through it. This is not a discretionary service fee: it is a tithe on productive activity conducted within the platform’s jurisdiction, owed by anyone whose business depends on access to that platform’s infrastructure.
Excommunication was how the Church removed an individual’s access to its services. An excommunicated person could not receive the sacraments and could not be married or buried through Church rites. Perhaps more importantly, in many places an excommunicant could not conduct legal business or appear in court. They couldn’t appeal to secular authority because the Church’s jurisdiction was not grounded in secular delegation.
This is exactly how deplatforming works today. A creator removed from a major platform loses access to the customers, tools, and markets that the platform controls with no due process, and there is no external authority they can appeal to.
Interdict extended excommunication from individuals to entire communities. When a ruler defied the Church, the pope could place the ruler’s territory under interdict, which suspended all sacramental services for its entire population. These people had not committed individual offenses; they were being collectively punished to create pressure on their ruler. Platform account suspensions that cover an entire organization, or that remove all content created by a team or community, are using the same logic.
The Church claimed jurisdiction over its own members in matters that it defined as ecclesiastical: clergy were tried in ecclesiastical courts under canon law, not in secular courts, and decisions made by the Church were not subject to external review. Today, major platforms claim that their moderation decisions, their terms of service enforcement, and their algorithmic choices are internal matters not subject to external oversight. This claim is contested by various levels of government for the same reason that medieval rulers waged a never-ending battle of wills with the Church.
The Church’s power was not maintained primarily through force (though it wasn’t shy to use force when necessary). Instead, its power was maintained by genuine belief, by cultural authority, and by the fact that participation in its systems was necessary to be a member of society. Major technology platforms’ power comes from the same sources. To leave Facebook does not just mean losing a service: it means losing connection to the social world that the platform provides.
- Southern1990
- R.W. Southern: Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (2nd ed.). Penguin, 1990, 978-0140137552.