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EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

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Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#271

Post by Xixi »

Silhouette wrote: post #175
avianlyric wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can a citizen who is governed by the EU meaningfully influence who is doing that governing? In particular, can a large group of citizens affect who holds power within the EU and vote out those individuals they don't want, so any individual office holder has some degree of personal accountability to the electorate? Erm yes. A large group of citizen can apply pressure to its local government to push for change in the…

These are the usual arguments in defence of the EU's democratic credentials. The fundamental problem I have with them is that they don't actually meet the simple, transparent standards I set out for meaningful democratic representation. National governments pick the members of the European Commision, so if you're not happy with your European Commission representative, take it up with your national government. How, sp…

> In reality, the number of levels of indirection between you or me as ordinary people who vote in elections and Ursula von der Leyen as the most powerful person in the EU government removes any meaningful requirement for her to either achieve a popular mandate before taking office or accept any meaningful personal accountability for her performance while in office.

In my country (France) there is exactly one level of indirection between me and Ursula von der Leyen: the President (currently Emmanuel Macron). Of course my voice is only one among 60 million French citizens, and 450 million EU citizens. And yet since I personally voted for Macron and IIRC Macron is the one who proposed Ursula von der Leyen, the line is pretty straight... In the UK there would be two levels: you elect your MPs, that then chose the Prime Minister, that then chose the European Commission President and Commissioners.

But I understand what you say. I had heard about Ursula von der Leyen as Germany defense minister before she became President of the European Commission (but that's only because I pay some attention to European defense affairs), yet when I cast my vote for Macron, I wasn't quite expecting to be voting for her.

I would prefer for the head of the European Commission to be elected by European MPs, but that would give too much power to the EU, a big no no for many EU members (including UK, at least while it was part of the EU). Notice the irony in that it's usually the political parties that criticize the EU the most for being undemocratic, that are the ones that oppose it becoming more democratic the most. It's disingenuous, yet logical, because a more democratic EU would have more power, so if you are anti-EU you don't want that.

As things stand the European Commission is only doing what the European Council is asking them to do. Which is somewhat ok (as in democratic), but lend itself more to shenanigans between states. If the European Commission was instead bound to the European Parliament, it would care less of the member states, and more of European citizens...

> And more generally, European Commissioner is infamous for being a role you give a national politician who is still in favour with the leadership but perhaps has lost popular support. Just look at the past roles of the people who get nominated to these positions by their respective governments. There's an incredible number of ex-representatives, and often not ex- by choice but because the electorate chose not to re-elect them.

In France it's usually perceived as a promotion. Our previous representative (Pierre Moscovici) was rather popular, and the current one (Thierry Breton) isn't even a politician: he was the CEO of Atos (a competitor of IBM I would say). Although he was minister once, from 2005 until 2007, so he is not a complete newbie in politics. Isn't it somewhat ironic that left-leaning France is sending a successful CEO to the European Commission, while UK is (was) recycling failing politicians?

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#272

Post by Aerroon »

coddle-hark wrote: post #189
baxtr wrote: post #75

Ok, I will probably get downvoted for this. But I will still speak my mind: I am an EU citizen and I don’t think that’s the right approach because it’s distracting from what really happened: We missed the big Internet bus because we were so much focused on keeping things the way they were. Now we try to regulate us out. It makes me unbelievably sad. And it continues. The car was invented here but it takes an Australi…

I can’t comment on why Europe isn’t the world leader in tech... but are we really missing out on much? The head counts (=jobs) of these companies are low compared to other sectors. Most (all?) have a strong European presence. Anyone can buy their stocks and share their wealth. It’s not like we don’t have strong engineering talent, either. Is there something I’m missing?

The problem is the future. Automation is undoubtedly going to be the key technology in the future. You want to have as healthy of a tech industry as possible to not miss the point when the balance starts shifting heavily towards automation. You can't expect to always be able to buy from China/the US.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#273

Post by jevgeni »

Aerroon wrote: post #254
Tarsul wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the free speech in the usa is also something out of a dystopian terror novel. Writers (e.g. in the atlantic) like to say that our time is less like 1984 and more like brave new world in that all the noise that is allowed through free speech leads to bad results (trump, brexit, anti-social media etc.) that are not necessarily better than what the EU is trying to avert with its free speech agenda. I'd argue some regula…

I don't see the connection at all. Neither the UK nor the US are dystopian or anywhere close to it. You can call Trump and Brexit bad results, but the people voted for that. It was their choice. Saying that we need limits on speech so that people wouldn't vote for them sounds dystopian instead. On top of that, I'd argue that while the US and the UK aren't doing great as a result of those choices people made, you can'…

In the US hate speech is protected as free speech, but you can’t swear on air...

Also, protection of hate speech was the reason that enabled a substantial chunk of trump voters, so i wouldn’t be that quick to point a dystopian finger at the EU

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#274

Post by Aerroon »

themacguffinman wrote: post #242
mrtksn wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having your communication run by foreign entities is dangerous. it’s no longer even direct communication, it’s curated. It can be used to create political problems, social unrest or movements, it can be used as commercial advantage on other areas. China happened to actually have a true competitor, TikTok and the first instinct of the USA was to try to ban it or force acquisition.

The Big Tech that the EU is targeting is mostly US-based, and the US is an EU ally. The US wasn't banning or forcing acquisitions for foreign competitors like WhatsApp or Line, and the EU isn't making moves on Visa/Mastercard which are arguably just as critical. If the EU was making this move based on national security reasons, I'd also expect them to be upfront about it.

Just because the US is an ally doesn't mean the EU can build themselves to be reliant on the US. It gives the US too much leverage.

>and the EU isn't making moves on Visa/Mastercard which are arguably just as critical.

They're arguably not as important in Europe. Credit cards aren't nearly as common here. It's largely debit cards and bank transfers. As I understand it, SEPA [0] allows Europe to sidestep Visa and MasterCard when necessary.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#276

Post by fn1 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #182
an_opabinia wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Small fries" and 24%... Anyway you're right but it's like, how would any of this concretely improve competition? In my experience, the problem is that giant companies steal your stuff, whether it's your code or your users, and that even when you want to enforce something like that, they can afford better lawyers than you. Like nobody here is working on social networks, cellphones or web browsers. I bet you interact…

> And then a giant company sues you for IP violations and you go bankrupt Is this an issue with the FAANG giants? My sense is initiating IP litigation is more the province of legacy tech companies like IBM and Oracle. (Who aren’t being targeted by these EU laws) I’ve seen very little examples of Apple, Google, or Amazon initiating patent lawsuits. Especially against small players. If anything most of their lobbying a…

Also software is not patentable in the EU.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#277

Post by rasz »

maltelandwehr wrote: post #190
baxtr wrote: post #75

Ok, I will probably get downvoted for this. But I will still speak my mind: I am an EU citizen and I don’t think that’s the right approach because it’s distracting from what really happened: We missed the big Internet bus because we were so much focused on keeping things the way they were. Now we try to regulate us out. It makes me unbelievably sad. And it continues. The car was invented here but it takes an Australi…

China showed how to foster a local tech startup ecosystem. As long as Europe refuses to take the same route, the US and China will split the pie.

By banning foreign ownership.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#278

Post by pmontra »

jariel wrote: post #226
avianlyric wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ancestors literally fought for 2000 years to overcome, with literally millions dead. Not sure how good your history is. But the EU was built by an ancestors who were fed of fighting and dying by the millions in wars that did nothing to actually improve people lives. The whole purpose of the EU from day zero was to ensure lasting peace in Europe, and given there haven't been any domestic European wars since its crea…

"The whole purpose of the EU from day zero was to ensure lasting peace in Europe" ? You do realize the EU as a body politic is very recent? (Not sure how good your history is. ?) 1) Yes, major powers who have economically integrated tend not to fight, that's great. It's the same all over the world. The US doesn't fight Japan either. 2) Europe's true sovereign guarantor, the US and their Nuclear Umbrella, which is the…

> Europeans were told after the election who their anointed leader would be, what her political platform was, and what her vision for the EU was.

> Just consider why for a moment the EU doesn't require leaders to be publicly announced and vetted before elections?

I'm from Italy. This is exactly what our Constitution provides about our Prime Ministers. They can be anybody, even without a seat in Parliament (or current Prime Minister doesn't.) The President of the Republic appoints them, probably even you because I don't see requirements about citizenship or residency. They must be confirmed by a vote of the Parliament (50%+1) and that's it. Actually, if they are not confirmed they still are Prime Minister until the President appoints somebody else. You can check Articles 92 to 96 of the Constitution at http://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/istituzione/costit... (PDF, English) from the site of one of the chambers of the Parliament.

I don't particularly like this but it's an example of how that is usual in Europe. Many other countries don't have direct elections for their leaders. Given this status it's normal that we don't elect the President of the Commission.

Furthermore what really matters is the Council, made by the leaders of each country. The Commission is the government but the real power is in the Council. A Commission going against the Council doesn't have any political backing.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#279

Post by Aerroon »

bloodorange wrote: post #66
fadsfsafadf123 wrote: post #53

Sometimes I think GDPR was secretly pushed by Big Tech to make it harder for smaller business's to compete. It was basically useless. I wouldn't even be surprised if Google or Facebook helped write the legislation. Whatever noise EU is making now I have very little hope for. If the US government was so fearful that a fun video app made in China had the power of compromising National Security, stealing and spying on c…

"It was basically useless" Could you elaborate and perhaps point towards what makes you think this way? I ask because I have worked in a rather large corporation which had to implement massive changes to ensure they were being more respectful and careful towards user data. In my experience, the GDPR made them take it seriously which was otherwise ignored as it allowed them to profit off being negligent about these th…

GDPR only matters if the EU has jurisdiction. If it's a website run from China then GDPR can't really do anything. A better first step would've been to limit the information that's being sent out in the first place - the browsers and OS. If people had better control over what their computer sends out then the privacy issues would be much less worrying. After that you can talk about limitations on who can do what with the data. Just having the latter means that people are still leaking all of their data, but companies are basically just promising not to use it.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#280

Post by 0xfaded »

One consequence is that this will continue to keep European tech valuations low. Silicon valley startup valuations allow some crazy and amazing ideas to be tried, but it's all based a premise that startups may one day become a unicorns. This also supports Silicon Valley level wages, which are almost non existent in Europe.

Now not only has the EU declared unicorns unwelcome, but also European users will be discounted, and perhaps even become a liability, if an EU startup seeks an exit to a US buyer. That's a huge problem since all major EU exits are sales to US buyers.

It's pretty clear the Silicon valley innovation model didn't work for Europe. But Europe still needs to figure out how to get money circulating back into productive capital. Negative interest rates mean you can park your money in real estate and ride the stagflation.

The current model seems to be for the government to fund all R&D, but please trust me as someone who spends way too much time writing grant applications that this model sucks.

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