This opinion piece argues that Europe should “shut down recommender algorithms” of the big US social media platforms - Facebook, X, Instagram, etc. - because the author believes that these algorithms are undermining European democracy.
The most obvious example of such an algorithm is on X, where Musk can manipulate the algorithm to boost European far-right parties, like AfD. But the author argues that other social media CEOs, like Zuck, are beholden to Trump’s anti-liberal agenda - for example, Trump “openly threatened to throw Mark Zuckerberg in jail for the rest of his life”. Therefore: “It is reasonable to assume that tech oligarchs will do what [Trump] tells them”, which may include the Trump administration pressuring US social media companies to recommend more right-wing content.
So the author says: “The EU must immediately switch off the tech companies’ algorithms on its soil, at least until they are proven safe for democracy”. Do you agree with that?
Algorithms are the friend of profit and profit only, there’s no other positive thing they are good for. People have lived without them for millenia finely, no need to continue having them.
True. Another thing that I think is artificial about social media is anonymity. In real life you can see who somebody is when you’re talking to them - you know whether they’re lying about their age, or accent, or whatever. But online you could have an American pretending to be a European, or a Russian pretending to be an American, etc. And anonymity seems to encourage some people to be more abusive and insulting than they would be in real life, talking to real people.
Anonymity might have some genuine uses though (like trying to escape persecution from your country’s government).
Well, seeing some politicians lie blatantly on TV with cameras and audios and the other politicans and moderators and studio guests that are physically there seeing it live, is not causing the liers to be not elected.
These politicians are real people talking to real people all day and it does not stop them from lieing and representing inhumane and criminal policies and ideologies, while getting elected for it.
Fair points. At least with real life politicians you can find out about their past behaviour though, if you do some reading.
On the internet people can just easily lie about who they are. There might be a propagandist on social media who has a strong foreign accent, so in real life you’d know they’re from a foreign country, but on the internet you can’t hear their accent, so they can easily lie about where they’re from.
Also even just for casual interactions on social media (e.g. Reddit), I think one of the reasons that people get so angry in discussions/arguments is because they don’t have to see the face of the other person. I guess it’s like a dehumanising interaction.
This is an unnuanced and frankly wrong answer.
Those people for the last several millennia didn’t have immediate access to an entire globe’s worth of news and information in real time… They had their local newspaper, which was weekly, maybe daily later on. Or a town crier. Being able to filter relevant stuff is important.
Fair enough