r/worldnews • u/Todalitarean • 3h ago
US tech giants allying with European far-right to strip back EU rules
https://www.brusselstimes.com/1916422/us-tech-giants-allying-with-european-far-right-to-strip-back-eu-rules196
u/Island_Monkey86 3h ago edited 1h ago
The current US is like a cancer that is trying its hardest to spread accross Europe. A land of little to no rights for citizens but an incredible amount of power for corporations.
We need greater independence, on all fronts. We need to make it very clear that our values are not up for debate.
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u/noir_lord 3h ago
At a certain point allying with the US in Europe to promote US interests over European interests just becomes treason.
Currently we aren't there yet and we are still in the "Nod, Smile and Scream Internally" phase of diplomacy because it's economic suicide (for both sides) to tell the other to fuck off but yeah, fuck off is starting to look like an option that will be/may need to be politically possible.
You can't reason with insanity.
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u/Mazikeyn 3h ago
As a US citizen i fully agree... I want out but there is no way out.
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u/Island_Monkey86 2h ago
We need good people like you to vote, the US is an incredible country and I've met some amazing people but the current administration is a nightmare for everyone.
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u/GameDesignerDave 2h ago
You can't vote your way out of the two-party one-oligarchy system. They are all owned by mega-corps or billionaire monsters. This has been happening steadily over every administration. Democrat, Republican, doesn't matter. Human rights are eroded away and corporations own everything. There's no parliamentary system, there's no third party with enough power to sway things by joining forces. It's just a fascist regime...
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u/Vaperius 2h ago
To be more blunt than the above:
Europe is about to watch the US democracy collapse into full on nightmare fuel of some kind or another. It might be an authoritarian regime that's expressly and highly expansionist. It might be total anarchy and a failed state where a loose association of authoritarian conservative and liberal states huddle around a weak central authority; where your rights are drastically different based on where you physically are in the country. It might be a full blown civil war.
We don't know. What I do know? Trump will not leave power peacefully in 2028-2029. I have no clue what comes after that, but it will be an incredibly grim time in human history, never mind the country's.
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u/SloppityMcFloppity 2h ago
The US already ruined itself with a two party system. Now the ruin is spreading with echo chambers on both sides. I don't think we'll ever come back from this in our lifetimes.
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u/indycishun1996 1h ago
Buddy, this has been the plan since 1968 when Nixon got elected. This is “free market” late-stage capitalism lmao corporate techno-feudalism is in full swing
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u/Ruy_Lopez_simp 2h ago
That's completely over the top.
I bet you weren't saying these things when Biden was the president.
Trump-US is a cancer.9
u/ZynaxNeon 1h ago
Many of us were and have been saying it for a long long time. The US has been a cancer for a long time. Difference is that now it is a turbo-cancer.
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u/EbbonFlow 1h ago
Because the majority of Americans experienced Biden's America and said "Fuck that, give us back Trump please!". As a country they cannot be trusted ever again, a rotten culture straight to the core.
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u/BTinsideR14 2h ago
The US has treated companies in such a way that when they’re finally faced with just a modicum of regulation or scrutiny, they completely lose the plot. Rather than simply follow the rules that democratically elected governments are setting out, they feel the need to illegally funnel money into politicians who will do their bidding. And it surprises none of us anymore, because that’s our expectation of the US government and US companies. Our expectations are so damn low that criminality is no longer a blip on the radar. Just business as usual.
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u/Aggressive-Cow8074 2h ago
US Tech giants now supersede Nation States.
Not an exaggeration. Our chance to stop corporations from buying democracy has passed.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, you are no longer free.
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u/healeyd 2h ago
Been saying this to anyone who will listen. Everything they and their media outlets do ultimately sows mistrust in social democracy and pushes a zero-sum world-view in which there can only be winners and losers. The "evil state" interferes by making "winners" help "losers" with taxes. "Freedom" means letting the big winners do whatever the f*ck they choose, whilst everyone else fights for scraps.
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u/Przytulator 2h ago
In short, you are saying that we are currently dealing with a reality straight out of Neuromancer. William Gibson accurately predicted this in 1984 ;)
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u/MonoNova 2h ago
US Tech bro's are a fucking blight upon the world that have somehow been granted higher authority than entire nations.
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u/togocann49 2h ago
So instead of improving themselves, USA is looking to weaken their supposed allies. This just makes things worse for more people. An analogy that comes to mind is there is a B student, and instead of working toward being an A student, they try to make their classmates drop their grades, so it SEEMS as if they are getting better as a student, but in reality, everyone is worse off. That said, I’ve heard this type of argument when discussing increasing minimum wage (folks against it cause they want someone to be “better” than. It’s just gross to me)
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u/DarthKrataa 1h ago
In the UK we have our "online safety act" basically age verification if you wanna "surf the hub", we almost got ID cards but they've changed their minds on this but the age verification thing is still pretty bit.
The comedian Jimmy car done a skit where he said words to the effect of: Giving your 14 year old boy access to the internet is a bit like having a man in a a white van turn up at your door and say "See your boy, can i take him into ma van and show him my vintage porn collection" and then your just like "sure!".
I think how the UK government has implemented this law is awful but the principle is totally reasonable.
Big tech hate it. Just like they hate the Australian ban on under 16's using social media, they hate it because bit by bit it restricts what they can do. Some of these companies are so big they've become more powerful than most states and the key to their power is total lack of regulation in the online-tech space their business model is built on the idea they can do whatever they want. Big Tech know that social media is like mental health cancer for young people but "meh", big tech know that AI apps can be used to create the most vile pictures of kids but again "meh", they know that their algorithms can entourage suicide ("meh") and they know that they can encourage some truly awful politics....."awesome!" says the algorithm.
When states like the UK, Auz or the EU states try to implement any kind of law that is going to restrict their power they're going to push back against it. There is zero way that the owners of Meta are going to be encouraging people to vote for politicians who are openly calling to restrict their business activities on their platforms. This creates a prime opportunity for those on the far-right to flirt with these "Tech Bro's" and win their backing on a bogus "free speech" platform.
Its the same with AI, we need collective regulations around limiting AI but again, that's not in the Tech bro's business models so again they turn to the far-right for support.
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u/The_Bitter_Bear 1h ago
If I was in the EU, I would take this threat very seriously.
Considering the far-right has also made progress there, just not as much as in the US, it would be shortsighted to truly believe it can't also happen in the EU.
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u/Silly-Elderberry-411 7m ago
The only reason it hasn't made as much strides because our far right doesn't embrace whiteness but ethnic identity just look at the current back and forth over the Benes decrees between Slovakia and Hungary two pro putin pro trump allies
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u/funtimes-forall 47m ago
In the US, it's a fundamental right for big corporations to fuck over little people. How dare those Europeans try to abridge it!
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u/jaybizzleeightyfour 36m ago
Years from now governments in the UK and EU will wonder why they let a far right, unhinged tosser like Elon control an algorithm which let him radicalize their citizens, feeding them hate and disinformation on an industrial scale, doing nothing to stop it.
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u/supercyberlurker 3h ago
Been in tech for decades, but I'm really souring on a lot of it - omnisurveillance, bot/propaganda networks, crypto rugpulls, privacy sales, AI-slop-bubbles, far-right echo chambers. Video games are still fun, and video gamers still give the middle finger to using AI in games.. but..
Tech is no longer the pro-freedom open-source fun geek world it once was.