English auto-translation (via Firefox)
The EU can ban X and Facebook, and Poland should strive for it
Lukasz Lachecki
Ban X would be a good start to anti-Musk counter-offensive. Thierry Breton, former Internal Market Commissioner for the European Commission, said in January, it is “legally possible”.
When last week we watched the spectacle that the American administration prepared for the president of Ukraine in the White House, there were conscious voices that our – i.e. European – priority does not necessarily have to be to choose the most pleasant patron of the threes of the USA, China or Russia. Instead, we should develop a way to reduce Facebook and X’s self-will in the European Union.
Jacek K put it more precisely. Sokołowski, author of last year’s book Transnaród. Poles in search of the political form he wrote (on X): “The current state of Fejsbuk and Twitter is that all this shit would be best in Europe.”
And it is not about the “censorship” whose declaration was tried to force on Magdalena Biejat Bogdan Rymanowski, nor about the restoration of standards or hard-acting, protracted negotiations. Rather, it is about immediately limiting the activities of foreign agents – and this is known to be a position that connects over divisions.
Tango with a phalanx (and the cottage)
As a user of both services, I can add some observation to Sokołowski’s observations. X seemed to be a platform dominated by pornbots and accounts funded by the FSB long before Elon Musk actively joined the AfD campaign and every next J.D. performance. Vance wiping his mouth with freedom of speech only accelerated the transformation of the service into a dysfunctional, glazing base of anti-Ukrainian propaganda.
On Facebook, it’s a little bit funnier – generated by artificial intelligence, touching photos of non-existent centenarians baking bread, farmers with a Kharkonium and older men waiting for a suspended dinner get thousands of likes and supporting comments. The graphics often hidden behind the “independent” farms of religious trolls and retired groups, whose role in the service was reinforced a few years ago, is just a prelude to the propaganda brainwashing that awaits us in the months leading up to the presidential election.
So X caters to the young angry, Facebook to the autumn of life, grooming users with content not yet (and only seemingly) related to politics. But – and here let’s quote Sokołowski again – it’s not that every voice has a meaning: “You are stupid and without it. Soszials are there to fool the political elite and decision-makers, so that they believe that what they see in the soshrooms are theirs, and that there is no other world outside the soszły.
In order for policymakers to believe that the world exists exclusively on social media, they cannot be marginalized by these media. If Musk had cut Tusk’s reach overnight, the whole scam behind the former Twitter would have become transparent and had the system mechanisms looked at. That’s why the Prime Minister is so far enjoying the relative sympathy of the American algorithm, spins popular, funny rolls on X and TikTok and the scouts of his subordinates for not being eagerly to talk about the contemporary Joseph Goebbels website.
“It is unacceptable for a politician not to have his social media today,” said KO politicians from the boss, who lives in an illusion similar to the hero of an old joke that stands in front of a vending machine with drinks, throws more coins and can’t move away from the machine, shouting to the hurricating people lining up in the queue: “You’ve gone crazy? I still win!” The feeling that Tusk, Myrcha and Sikorski can “play” an algorithm is completely narcissistic and naive.
Nevertheless, it continues and drives Polish politicians, who are less and less convening press conferences and are not too worried about relations with the media – even if they were financed from the State Treasury. It is not known why we have to learn about the actions of the Polish authorities through a private American company managed by a fascist car dealer. Looking at the current state of diplomatic relations – I might as well look for reports on the Polish rule of law on Weibo.
Act of Disobedience to the Act
While almost everyone realized that the recent announcement of changes to Facebook’s moderation was a tribute to Mark Zuckerberg’s new American ruler, there was rarely information about his actual denial of the provisions of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into force in the European Union only a year ago, on February 17, 2024.
The document was adopted, among others, in response to at least well-known examples of users since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, influencing the results of democratic elections, child abuse and lynching. Not without significance was that the European Council voted on the adoption of the DSA in October 2022 – after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The aim of the provisions contained in the DSA was, among others, to counteract social risks, to strengthen supervision, to combat illegal content, traceability of entrepreneurs and to implement transparency measures. It takes about 10 minutes in any social media to find evidence that “deregulation” in this respect on any U.S. service has completely gotten out of hand.
Jim Stewartson, an American podcaster, says Europe should block all Musk companies operating on our continent. This would probably mean a legislative and diplomatic route through the torment, but banning X could be a good start to a beautiful adventure. Thierry Breton, former Commissioner for Internal Market at the European Commission, said in January, to block X is “legally possible”.
Order the Order
The Brazilian Supreme Court took advantage of a similar opportunity, introducing blockade X last year, after many months of tensions between the country’s authorities and the platform, caused, among others, by the role of the X in the winding up of the riots after the defeat of Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential election. Unfortunately, the ban lasted just over a month – but for trying to circumvent it, the platform paid a $5.2 million fine. Probably not much, but still more than Google will put on financing the science of artificial intelligence for Poles in the next five years.
Will the Poles love it?
Of course, the decision to go to war with Musk and his platform will not entail only enthusiasticly set for the ban of millions who will unite and start playing to the goal of the EU instead of going on the leash of the richest man in the world. The resistance would be great – and supported by the propaganda machine of the platforms themselves.
Mentzen, Fogiel and Giertych, like Tusk, are convinced that in this race they have forums due to their perspicacity, charisma and brilliant strategies, and their voters are eager to sip a spin on “freedom of speech”, “censorship” and “eurocolk”. However, slightly less detached politicians and politicians should start to point out that it is a fixed-sum game in which a slot machine with cans wields and program businessmen close to the hostile European president of the United States.
Perhaps it is worth thanking Jarosław Kaczyński that he has anointed a beautiful mind for his candidate for president, which even algorithms may not help, and wait with building an anti-Musk coalition with Germany, France or Sweden until the period after the presidential elections, which a possible offensive would undoubtedly influence.
However, avoiding discussion on this topic would deprive Poland of one of the best opportunities to deepen integration at the European level in the new situation in international politics. Both the candidate Trzaskowski, the former Minister of Administration and Digitization, as well as the current head of the ministry responsible for digitization, certainly understand that this is a solution that does not require monstrous costs, as in the case of turbo-acceleration in the arms race, but protecting us from the fascist cyberthree, which will otherwise undoubtedly come.
( @Sunshine@lemmy.ca Please provide an English translation with future submissions )
I’m sorry about that, next time I will include an English translation.
Thanks!
it’s incredible how little information, especially subtext, survived this process
hand-corrected deepl translation
Banning X would be a good start to an anti-Musk counteroffensive. As Thierry Breton, former Internal Market Commissioner at the European Commission, said in January, this is “legally possible.”
As we watched the spectacle set up by the U.S. administration for the Ukrainian president at the White House last week, there were some lucid voices saying that our - i.e., Europe’s - priority is not necessarily to choose the friendliest patron from the trio of the U.S., China or Russia. Instead, we should work out a way to curb Facebook and X’s arbitrariness in the European Union.
This was more precisely put by Jacek K. Sokołowski, author of last year’s book Transnation. Poles in Search of Political Form, who wrote (on X): “The current state of Facebook and Twitter is such that all this shit would be best straight up banned in Europe.”
And it’s not about “censorship,” the declaration of which Bogdan Rymanowski tried to force Magdalena Biejat to declare, nor about restoring standards, or tough, protracted negotiations. Rather, it’s about immediately curbing the activities of foreign agents - and this, as is well known, is a position that unites across divisions.
Tango with the Falanga[1] (and challah-horse[2])
As a user of both services, I can add some observations to Sokolowski’s statement. X seemed to be a platform dominated by porn-bots and FSB-funded accounts long before Elon Musk actively joined the campaign for the AfD, and each successive performance by J.D. Vance wiping his mouth with freedom of speech only accelerated the site’s transformation into a dysfunctional, gnarly base for anti-Ukrainian propaganda.
It’s a little funnier on Facebook - artificial intelligence-generated, touching photos of non-existent centenarians baking bread, farmers with challah-horse and elderly men waiting for a dinner on hold garner thousands of likes and supportive comments. The graphics, often hiding behind religious fanpages captured by political staffers or “independent” troll farms and pensioner groupies whose role in the site was strengthened a few years ago, are just a prelude to the propaganda brainwashing that awaits us in the months leading up to the presidential election.
So X caters to the young angry, Facebook to the autumn of life, grooming users with content not yet (and only seemingly) related to politics. But - and here again to quote Sokolowski - it’s not that every vote matters: “You guys are stupid even without it. Social media are there to stupefy the political elite and decision-makers, so that they believe that what they see in the socials are their voters and that there is no other world outside the socials.”
For policymakers to believe that the world exists only in social media, they cannot be marginalized by it. If Musk were to cut Tusk’s reach overnight, the whole scam behind the former Twitter would become transparent and make one look at the mechanisms of its system. That’s why, for the time being, the prime minister enjoys the relative sympathy of the American algorithm, records popular, funny shorts on X and TikTok, and scolds his subordinates for not too readily garnering discussion on a service of a modern-day Joseph Goebbels.
“It’s unacceptable for a politician not to have his social media today,” KO politicians heard from their boss, who lives in an illusion similar to the protagonist of an old joke who stands in front of a vending machine, drops in more coins and can’t walk away from the machine, shouting to the people hurrying him along in line: “Are you guys crazy? After all, I’m still winning!” The feeling that Tusk, Myrcha and Sikorski can “cheat” the algorithm, however, is completely narcissistic and naive.
Nonetheless, it persists and drives Polish politicians, who are convening press conferences less and less frequently and are not overly concerned about media coverage - even if it is funded by the Treasury. It is unclear why we have to learn about the actions of the Polish authorities through a private American company managed by a fascist car salesman. Looking at the current state of diplomatic relations - I might as well look for reports about the Polish rule of law on Weibo.
An act of disobedience to the Act
While almost everyone has figured out that the recent announcement of Facebook’s moderation changes is Mark Zuckerberg’s tribute to the new American ruler, news reports have rarely mentioned his actual denunciation of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which took effect in the European Union just a year ago, on February 17, 2024.
The document was adopted, among other things, in response to well-known examples since at least the Cambridge Analytica scandal of polarizing users, influencing the results of democratic elections, exploiting children and inciting lynching. It was no small matter that the European Council voted to adopt the DSA in October 2022 - that is, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The purpose of the provisions in the DSA was, among other things, to address social risks, strengthen oversight, combat illegal content, identify businesses and implement transparency measures. It only takes 10 minutes or so on any social media outlet to find evidence that “deregulation” in this regard on any U.S.-based site has gotten completely out of hand.
American podcaster Jim Stewartson argues that Europe should block all Musk’s companies operating on our continent. This would probably mean a legislative and diplomatic ordeal, but banning X could be a good start to a beautiful adventure. As Thierry Breton, former internal market commissioner at the European Commission, said in January, blocking X is “legally possible.”
The Brazilian Supreme Court, by the way, used a similar option when it imposed a block on X last year, after months of tension between the country’s authorities and the platform, triggered by, among other things, X’s role in fomenting unrest after Jair Bolsonaro’s loss in the presidential election. Unfortunately, the ban only lasted a little over a month - but the platform paid a $5.2 million fine for its attempts to circumvent it alone. Seemingly not much, but still more than Google will shell out to fund Poles to learn artificial intelligence over the next five years.
Will the Poles love it?
Of course, the decision to go to war with Musk and his platform won’t just draw enthusiastic millions sympathetic to ban, who will unite and start playing to the EU’s goal instead of walking on the leash of the richest man in the world. Resistance would be enormous - and backed by the propaganda machine of the platforms themselves.
Mentzen, Fogiel and Giertych, like Tusk, are convinced that they have the upper hand in this race by virtue of their perspicacity, charisma and brilliant strategies, and their voters will gladly gulp down the spin about “freedom of speech,” “censorship” and “Euro-kolkhoz”. [3] However, slightly less unhinged politicians should start paying attention to the fact that this is a fixed-sum game, where the vending machine is wielded and programmed by businessmen close to a US president hostile to Europe.
Perhaps it is worth thanking Jaroslaw Kaczynski for anointing as his presidential candidate a beautiful mind, which even algorithms may not help, and waiting to build an anti-Musk coalition with Germany, France or Sweden until after the presidential elections, which a possible offensive would undoubtedly influence.
However, avoiding discussion of the issue would deprive Poland of one of its best opportunities to deepen integration at the European level in the new situation in international politics. Both candidate Trzaskowski, the former minister of administration and digitization, and the current head of the ministry responsible for digitization surely understand that this is a solution that does not require monstrous costs, as in the case of turbocharging in the arms race, but protects us from the fascist cyber-dystopia that would otherwise undoubtedly come.
[1] falanga, a polish nazi org with outsized facebook presence and russian secret service connections. splinter of ONR
[2] an instance of ai-generated bread horse that made rounds a couple of weeks ago
[3] rabid cry of fervent anticommunists/libertarians, mostly born after 2000, clustered around antivaxxer-libertarian-monarchist-nationalist-prorussian party
Yeah, the Firefox machine translation is not the best, I was happy to have caught “anti-muscle offensive” (Firefox), or even worse, “anti-Muslim offensive” (DeepL). :) I did notice the inexplicable term Kharkorum but had no idea it could possibly mean AI-generated bread-horses.
Thanks a lot for correcting it! (Though I want to be clear that human translations are not expected!)
And TikTok, please, while we’re at it.
deleted by creator
I don’t think it’s a bad plan, but I believe a good first step would be to close all government accounts on Twitter and open them on Mastodon instead. I’m talking about all levels of administration within the EU27. The impact on journalists, the press, reporters, and others would be massive.
Each country should at the very least have an instance on it e.g. the BBC has one.
I don’t understand why national offices (police, prime minister) use twitter to post news when it has consistently been the least popular social media according to the national statistics office.
This would be a fascinating social experiment.
Ban Twitter/Facebook while the US keeps them, and see how the populations of the two countries diverge.
Speaking as an American, it would also be awesome if the fediverse explodes in Europe, and the dominant topics/discussions shift to EU focused ones.
I too would love less America and all my social media feeds…
Signed Canada
😁
I feel the need to apologize for my country. Sorry!
I hope more “Americans” (*) reading this would take it to their heart and check what they’re posting, commenting, and up/ down voting. Change starts from ourselves.
(*) Americans is a term I am not comfortable with, but there’s no alternative, right? I am from South America and always pissed me a bit that up there they are “the Americans”. Is like the argument over the Gulf… only that it was never discussed :(
On that, I think it took an extreme, real caricature to make me more cognizant of that. Like, it’s mind boggling that some are cheering on the Gulf renaming, but I guess it’s a microcosm of what’s been going on for a long time.
Speaking as an American, it would also be awesome if the fediverse explodes in Europe, and the dominant topics/discussions shift to EU focused ones.
I’d certainly love this. I’ve blocked all American(-focused) communities to achieve this already. Honestly, I often feel Dutch people know more about US internal politics than those of the EU or even the Netherlands, and I’ve myself gotten a bit sick of 80% of the news I see being about America (even in traditional media I feel America takes up way too much space).
I think in our media America should have a presence a bit bigger than China.
Quickest way to avoid American content is to not use English.
My main ‘traditional media’ (newspapers, news broadcasts) are all Dutch and German language. Like I said, even there there’s too much of a focus on America.
Honestly I would love to be immersed in EU topics instead. Even some open Chinese discussion. I am ashamed of how much American politics blots out the sun atm, and the less attention our tantrums get the better.
Shun us. Please, I am begging you, lol.
Eh. It’s not America’s fault its soft-power works so well, nor that Europeans apparently prefer flocking to US (and Chinese, bizarrely) social media instead of coming up with their own. There is also a good rationale for the in-detail reporting on US politics, considering it’s by and large the protector of the status-quo in Europe (though I’ve read European reporting on US internal politics is very lacking).
But yeah, it’d be great if, under this Europe-first atmosphere, media (on- and offline) also start focusing more on Europe.
It’s not that some European startups haven’t tried. Americans came up with it first, so it’s the first mover and network effect rule at play, I guess. Facebook is defacto communication across large swaths of the world.
We actually had a Facebook-like social medium called Hyves in the Netherlands, which was very big until Facebook also took off here, indeed probably because of the network effect. I’ve never been a fan of online social networks as a concept, though, so I didn’t like either :p
Maybe we will now get our own evil oligarch-run social network monopolist!
I’d like to know more about my european neighbors, too, but unfortunately, there’s a language barrier and news reports in english that cover more than the most important stuff is not that common.
We probably need more pan-european media to learn more about Europe.
Ever heard of auto traslate? Is a feature most modern browser come included with
Last time I used such a feature (which, tbf, was a few years ago) it was a weird translation with word-by-word translations and weird choices putting content in the wrong context.
Hilarious when both totalitarian and liberal countries do the same thing for different reasons. Really tickles my funny bone.
please be hero poland
Important note: Krytyka Polityczna is not impartial on matters related to the US as they were recipients of USAID money. It’s mostly a place for elites kids to write about the most pretentious crap like saving bogs, while ignoring issues of lower class.
I still subscribe because they reprint Varufakis and Zizek sometimes.
Here’s hoping.
Twitter isn’t even that popular in Europe, but there’s absolutely no, not even the smallest chance it’ll get banned.
Politicians seem to be the only ones using it. Works great as an containment area.
Yeah, it ssems those tweets are not for the people, but for the media who can screenshot it and make a half-assed article about it.
Man on twitter says ban twitter
·
The war, the geopolitical uncertainty and the new arms race started by Putin have left Europe with no choice. Europe must be ready for this race, and Russia will lose it like the Soviet Union 40 years ago. From today, Europe will arm itself more wisely and faster than Russia.
C’mon guys, it will just NEVER happen.
My guess is they won’t ban it this easily
I’m against any banning. Not even X or Facebook.
