- "Some critics likened this to measures seen in authoritarian states like China and Iran."
To distinguish the actions you would need a magnifying glass and a thesaurus.
(Which any number of pundits are about to dust off from their bookshelves. Because: moral valence flows from the actor to the action. Obviously the authoritarian regimes oppress their people; obviously the free democracies protect their peoples' freedom and security. It takes conscious effort to reverse the causal order—to judge the actor by their actions, not re-interpret the actions on the fly to the fit the actor).
That's kind of the point I was going for in my (post-edit) comment. EU countries are broadly very free countries, totally and qualitatively unlike the authoritarian exemplars. The threat of shutting down social media to quench anti-government protests, specifically, is very, very like parallel examples from repressive dictatorships. It's a thought-terminating cliche to erase this second observation by overwriting it with the first.
> In 2008 the EU’s economy was somewhat larger than America’s: $16.2 trillion versus $14.7 trillion. By 2022, the US economy had grown to $25 trillion, whereas the EU and the UK together had only reached $19.8 trillion. America’s economy is now nearly one-third bigger. It is more than 50 per cent larger than the EU without the UK.
The UK leaving the EU is seen as a UK failure (because brexit affected the UK much); but them leaving the EU is a EU failure because one of the members of the union has left. People underestimate this fact a lot.
on edit: actually thinking about it, since Germany is about 21% of economy and England is slightly under Germany I guess England could be responsible for a significant amount of that loss - assuming significance is more than 15% of the loss.
'(EU economy was 10% larger than the US economy in 2005; in 2022, US economy was 40% larger than the EU's)'
How is this measured? If I can print money without any consequences because I am the world reserve currency, and I decide after 2008 to go berserk on that, would my GDP grow without basically changing anything in the real economie?
GDP is a bit trickier than that, and exports are much harder to fabricate. Printing money clearly has its limits even for the USD (they can see the inflation now and the limits of it).
I think you are right on this. Being the world's reserve currency, US can swap their printed money with real assets (in this case, companies, metals, grains, etc), thereby these companies bought with USD becoming American. If USD ceases being the world reserve currency, the dollar value can fall by 35% or more. In a way, the world (esp exporters, exporters who force importers to pay in USD) subsidizes US indirectly. Yet no one talks about this malaise, and the costs borne out by the the rest of the world. That's why the debates in US is always about why not print money to fiscal spending (for the ordinary people), as the cronies of capitalists have been printing money (or by suppressing interest rates, and by QE policies) to help the capitalist class and their elite servant class (managers, media, think tanks, etc).
A quick search showed the EU and the US being, more or less, on par when ot comes to GDP and such. Not sure where you got your numbers from. Also, not sure what any of this has to do with shutting down Social Media in some situations.
I think you're exaggerating with the Soviet Union comparison. But yeah, the economy and jobs market is pretty stagnant. What's not stagnant is the housing market. We're gonna be like Canada soon.
Most social systems are already breaking down due to increased costs, increased burdens and bad privatization, all of which are predicted to increase. Several countries are already pushing the burden back on younger individuals as a way to keep the boomer and older millennial voters happy. Meanwhile, the things named by GP are likely to increase, as well.
>Social media platforms like TikTok and Snapchat will face possible shutdowns when they don't crack down on problematic content
Ok, and who defines what exactly is "problematic content"? Let me guess, it's gonna be whatever the government wants silenced.
>"When there is hateful content, content that calls – for example – for revolt, that also calls for killing and burning of cars, they will be required to delete [the content] immediately,"
Aha, but if I invite 100k people to a meeting in the city center next to the parliament building for a peaceful protest, that will be fine and not get removed, right? Right?
An optimistic view would be that courts decide what is right and wrong. They are supposed to be independent of both the government and the parliament, and if you fear a dystopian future where they aren't, shutting down TikTok isn't going to be our biggest problem.
I don't understand how you can question this, are you trying to stop our government from being able to fight right-wing Russian misinformation trolls? With attitudes like that, Ukraine will lose.
So the solution to massive social unrest is to get people to stop talking about it? Just pretend it is not happening and everything is going to be fine.
Our leaders are so narcissistic and think so high of themself and low of us that they can't fathom that any discontent from their subjects are real and not some manufactured discontent from the whatever country they happen to war monger against.
That said social media is toxic and I am quite sure Facebook and Twitter have manipulated the feeds to incite discontent in countries that is on the Washington shit list. When they shut down social media it was seen as an attack on democracy ...
Hahaha, when third world countries suppress social media, NGOs, USAID, the West bemoans the fact that liberal values of the hour (freedom, suppression of minorities, independent media, etc) are suppressed. When it comes to the West, blame it on "disinformation campaign by Russia/China, election interference, public interest being suppressed, etc". At least in the third world, ordinary people know that freedom depends on the enforcers of the state machinery, and they don't cite constitution or statues or liberal values. Enter the West: it is a different game.
Readit News
To distinguish the actions you would need a magnifying glass and a thesaurus.
(Which any number of pundits are about to dust off from their bookshelves. Because: moral valence flows from the actor to the action. Obviously the authoritarian regimes oppress their people; obviously the free democracies protect their peoples' freedom and security. It takes conscious effort to reverse the causal order—to judge the actor by their actions, not re-interpret the actions on the fly to the fit the actor).
This is bad but not yet _that_ bad. I have to say though, EU legislature in recent years is on a very slippery slope.
People will get hurt if they have to think for themselves.
If the people are revolting it is definitely illegitimate on their part, our dear leaders are infallible in their efforts to do what's best for them.
How far our 'leaders' have fallen.
-Economy become stagnant (EU economy was 10% larger than the US economy in 2005; in 2022, US economy was 40% larger than the EU's)
-Ever increasing power centralization into Brussels with all kinds of fun instruments like joint debt
-Censorship laws coming up
Nothing can convince me the end result won't be something akin to the Soviet Union. All the right mechanisms are creeping into place
confirmed by this world bank chart:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location...
the biggest econ problem in the EU is that some countries are still either below or have similar GDP to 2008’s GFC:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location...
> In 2008 the EU’s economy was somewhat larger than America’s: $16.2 trillion versus $14.7 trillion. By 2022, the US economy had grown to $25 trillion, whereas the EU and the UK together had only reached $19.8 trillion. America’s economy is now nearly one-third bigger. It is more than 50 per cent larger than the EU without the UK.
from https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-art-of-vassalisation-how-rus...
How much of that is due to the UK leaving?
on edit: actually thinking about it, since Germany is about 21% of economy and England is slightly under Germany I guess England could be responsible for a significant amount of that loss - assuming significance is more than 15% of the loss.
How is this measured? If I can print money without any consequences because I am the world reserve currency, and I decide after 2008 to go berserk on that, would my GDP grow without basically changing anything in the real economie?
Cause the alternative is centralization under a parliament in Brusells. Is that something that you really equal to Soviet Union?
In poorer countries waiting lists on stuff like MRI can be up to two years, debilitating surgery procedures in 6 months, etc.
People talk about EU and just talk about best parts. Inequality between EU countries is greater than US states.
It's not the gotcha it was 10 years ago.
Dead Comment
Ok, and who defines what exactly is "problematic content"? Let me guess, it's gonna be whatever the government wants silenced.
>"When there is hateful content, content that calls – for example – for revolt, that also calls for killing and burning of cars, they will be required to delete [the content] immediately,"
Aha, but if I invite 100k people to a meeting in the city center next to the parliament building for a peaceful protest, that will be fine and not get removed, right? Right?
So what defines problematic content? The law.
Upvotes to the left, folks.
Deleted Comment
Our leaders are so narcissistic and think so high of themself and low of us that they can't fathom that any discontent from their subjects are real and not some manufactured discontent from the whatever country they happen to war monger against.
That said social media is toxic and I am quite sure Facebook and Twitter have manipulated the feeds to incite discontent in countries that is on the Washington shit list. When they shut down social media it was seen as an attack on democracy ...