Comment by thiago_fm
1 year ago
What we need in Europe, is protectionism both against US companies and Chinese companies. They have been funded by both country's heavily deficitary budgets and incentives.
Just fining Meta and Google a few billions every year isn't enough. Need to either tax all that digital pollution they bring over here.
And now they clearly aren't our partners anymore. With China not sharing democratic values and wanting to invade Taiwan, and the US setting up a trade war against us and at the same time siding with our enemy Russia that has just invaded Ukraine...
We need to have our own tech, for everything.
Similar to what US is doing against China, we should have a strong position against both of them. And one that strikes close at heart in the US are the Big Techs.
It's hilarious that we don't let even Fanta be sold with the terrible chemical formula it has here in the EU, like they have in the US.
But when it's about manipulating people's opinions with the US's social networks and communication apps. We are ok with that.
I'm sure anybody nowadays can build similar software than Meta or Google did. Even now more with AI search being so good.
They are doing us a favor by not being our partners and not sharing what is left of our values. The discussion would be a lot harder if they stop being our partners 20 years from now.
Rather than protectionism there should be the ambition to build something better or more suitable for the audience. This isn't hard at all. The US corps are trying to build something suitable for everyone which is much harder than a specific demography.