Europe and America will increasingly come to diverge into 2 different internets. Meta is abandoning fact-checking in the US, but not the EU, where fact-checking is a legal requirement.
Europe and America will increasingly come to diverge into 2 different internets. Meta is abandoning fact-checking in the US, but not the EU, where fact-checking is a legal requirement.
Rumbling away throughout 2024 was EU threats to take action against Twitter/X for abandoning fact-checking. The EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) is clear on its requirements - so that conflict will escalate. If X won't change, presumably ultimately it will be banned from the EU.
Meta have decided they'd rather keep EU market access. Today they announced the removal of fact-checking, but only for Americans. Europeans can still benefit from the higher standards the Digital Services Act guarantees.
The next 10 years will see the power of mis/disinformation accelerate with AI. Meta itself seems to be embracing this trend by purposefully integrating fake AI profiles into its networks. From now on it looks like the main battle-ground to deal with this is going to be the EU.
Also… don’t call this the internet.
Facebook and Twitter are not the internet, they are Facebook and Twitter. It’s tragic they have become the de facto internet for so many, but still.
I think the point they’re trying to make is that these two large sites are just the start. Others will follow suit to the point where eventually most sites across the entire internet will be in this bifurcated situation. We’re seeing similar things with things like cookies, ads, and age verification.
Fair point, and probably true.
That said, for much of the 'old' internet... it doesn't matter. Spaces were mostly user moderated niches, and they weren't monetizing their users to the point where tracking regulation is enough of an issue to bifuricate.
Nothing new. Try watching CNN International vs CNN US some day. One is a real, respectable news outlet while the other is a propaganda mill.
Is there some kind of loophole where Canada can join the EU? I mean we're not really that far away if you fly over the North Pole and down again.
Pretty please? Think of the better costs for Poutine and Maple Syrup!
Literally yes. Cyprus is in the EU, while being part of the Middle East. Being a French-English European clone country with a Danish land border and a strong democracy gives us good odds of qualifying as "substantially European".
The real problem there is that we couldn't technically have our own currency, and the US border would probably be a lot harder to cross as it would be the Schengen border. Also, it might make Trump pay a lot more attention in a bad way. Honestly it still seems like a good deal to me, though.
Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic don't use the Euro. It's really not mandatory, but it's beneficial to all countries at comparable economic development level. I think Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Greece and perhaps Italy would have benefitted from using their own currencies for a while longer. The minimum wage on some of those countries is incredibly low and the goods prices too high for the Euro. This is not the case with Poland, for instance, where goods are cheaper.
The biggest issue with Canada is population, same as Ukraine and Turkey as of this moment. The EU is scared that adding a member state that has a population size comparable to the bigger states already within will create a power imbalance. This issue is getting more problematic as time goes on since our population is currently shrinking. If the EU takes in Ukraine, they will probably balk at adding a state as big as Canada anytime soon.
The irony of all of it is that technically I can become a dual citizen anytime I wanted to file the paperwork since my parents are Portuguese citizens. But up until recently I've never felt the need for that particular escape valve.
I've always known I would have to get it eventually in order to handle my now ageing father's finances over there when he passes. And I always regretted not doing it when I was young and free to travel before life gets one bogged down in trivialities.
Last week’s economist article
https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/01/02/why-canada-should-join-the-eu
There's still a lot of bad blood between the Danes and the Canadians. A lot of good young men watched booze being spilled in front of them. It was horrific. I just don't know if there's any coming back from the kind of horrors both countries saw in the Whiskey War.
If Australia joined Eurovision than Canada can join the EU
There is a process. First you need to join Eurovision.
Had coffee the other day with a Meta engineer. After Trump got elected, suddenly their manager was like "we have to ensure we have no false positive removals" of content that violates their various policies. When pressed, the manager was like "damn right this is about the election." Previously they were more concerned about false negatives, apparently. Anyway, I suspect they're trying to avoid Elon aiming his ion cannon at them or something. All social media in the US is probably going to swing further right as a result.
TikTok was a warning shot to the US companies to stay in line.
TikTok is prime example of political influence via social media. Unlike twitter where influence comes from a lax content policy, TikTok bans undesirable content.
Not to mention the security implication of having the location habits/sexual pref/interests of all your population in the hands of a foreign dictator (TikTok) or oligarchal megalomaniac (Elon,Zuck).
The NIH is doing similar with scientific groups. Essentially, "stop working with this material because the new politician in charge doesn't like it and this could threaten your funding even though this work was specifically written into the grant." These decisions are not based upon scientific evidence, but politics.
It could also be taken as "stop reporting that you are working with this material..."
Maybe some US “Twitter broadcasters” will move to EU analogues when it turns into such a wasteland. If Twitter’s base hates them anyway, there’s no point in being there, and they can still get some traction overseas.
I fear regular users are “stuck” in the US though. Old friends or grandmas are not moving off of Facebook. And small businesses (or anyone small enough not to be amplified by news outlets and other sources) is stuck on US Twitter, where the audience they’re actually trying to reach is.