8 ms·

US threatens extra tariffs, export bans, for nations that regulate Big Tech

122 points by belter 1y ago

fifteen1506 1y ago
Oh god. A friend of mine quotes a writer: "The old world is dying. The new is slow to be born: now is the time of monsters." And this is the only framework I can look to this news with. Either that or mercantilism, I'm told.
- gsf_emergency_2 1y ago
  The original quote from Gramsci opens this essay: https://www.lacittafutura.it/cultura/il-vecchio-muore-e-il-nuovo-non-puo-nascere https://www.lacittafutura.it/cultura/il-vecchio-muore-e-il-n...
A_D_E_P_T 1y ago
If the past few months have taught us anything, it's that Europe is so cowed and poorly-led that they'll knuckle-under and submit to whatever. In fact, if this is true, they probably won't even invest in local alternatives for fear of retaliation. That said, the correct response would be to slowly and silently divest from US-based Big Tech, fork whatever can be forked, and invest heavily in local services and infrastructure.
- sleepyguy 1y ago
  >If the past few months have taught us anything, it's that Europe is so cowed and poorly-led that they'll knuckle-under and submit to whatever. Past few months? Just look at their response to security and Russian aggression. I lost hope years ago.
- bboygravity 1y ago
  I'm in EU and maybe my opinion is controversial, but I think there's something very positive for EU citizens about Trump using tarrifs to pressure the EU politically. Why? Because it's basically our only hope of slowing down the evolution towards a centralized totalitarian EU government. It's pretty obvious that the EU wants to ban free speech (online) ASAP and fully control the public political narrative ASAP. I feel the US/Trump is our only hope of slowing this down as a guarantee of (future) true democracy at the EU level essentially doesn't exist for us any other way. The EU sees China as an example to follow and I feel Trump/US is the only thing trying to stop EU leadership of going there.
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    Except Trump is just as authoritarian as China so what difference does it make who they adore?
    - ExoticPearTree 1y ago
      > Except Trump is just as authoritarian as China so what difference does it make who they adore? How do you figure?
      - wkat4242 1y ago
        Oh maybe you haven't seen the news, sorry. The capitol storming and freeing all that participated. Having major cities being taken over by the army. Stifling free press. You know all that good old dictatorship playbook stuff.
        ExoticPearTree 1y ago
        > The capitol storming and freeing all that participated. I don't have an opinion on that. It is the president's prerogative to pardon whoever he wants, no justification necessary. > Having major cities being taken over by the army. That is the National Guard. Not the same thing as the Army. The Army would be a very bad option should that happen. The cities are not taken over. The mayor/police chief of those cities have no desire to reign in crime, the federal government has to step in. Depending on your political views, this is a good thing or a bad thing. Bottom line is that people much more safer now in DC than they were 2-3 weeks ago. > Stifling free press. For this I have zero information. Link(s)?
        computerthings 1y ago
        [dead]
        myvoiceismypass 1y ago
        > The cities are not taken over. The mayor/police chief of those cities have no desire to reign in crime, the federal government has to step in. Depending on your political views, this is a good thing or a bad thing. Bottom line is that people much more safer now in DC than they were 2-3 weeks ago. I find that the people who make statements like this don't actually live in cities. Its like you got your talking points from Stephen Miller.
- thrance 1y ago
  I think the correct response would be to immediately ban Facebook and Twitter, to make the worst oligarchs reconsider their support of Trump and show that Europe means it (one can always dream). I don't believe slow and silent are the correct stances to adopt when the global economy is held at the whims of this egotistical manchild.
  - marcinzm 1y ago
    Trump can make drastic course changes much faster than Europe can ever agree on any strategy. Trying to match Trump's approach of drastic responses is a losing strategy for Europe. All Trump has to do is put 200% tariffs on LNG exports right as winter starts or something similar. Democratic governments don't last long when their population literally starts to freeze to death.
    - thrance 1y ago
      Yes, my ban of Twitter and Facebook is pure wishful thinking, I know that. But ultimately, it's a war of attrition, and it's the US vs the World. The US economy is alreay starting to show cracks, I don't think de-escalation is the way.
    - ivan_gammel 1y ago
      Nah. If Trump does that you will see how fast the Nord Stream 1/2 can be fixed.
      - marcinzm 1y ago
        I like how Europe's solution to Trump is to make itself a puppet of an even worse dictator. While expecting the worse dictator to not use that leverage to take over more of Europe. Who will charge 100% tariffs as well since a weak Europe is to their advantage as well.
        ivan_gammel 1y ago
        This is not what will happen at all. I won’t go here into much detail, but the thing is, there’s a demand in Europe that cannot be fulfilled from other sources for the time being. Europe is not going to fix America or Russia, so it has to trade with them. It is a huge market for both, that cannot be ignored, and access to that market won’t be sold cheap. If they have to compete to sell us gas, great. The lesson has been learned anyway, emission targets will be hit, alternative energy sources will make us much less dependent within next 15-20 years.
- llm_nerd 1y ago
  >it's that Europe is so cowed and poorly-led If you have a 27 country bloc and are rationally limited to the actions of the most timid or compromised, it's pretty easy to manipulate the actions of the whole. We know Hungary is effectively a Russia proxy, for instance, and has massively influenced the response to Russia. Similarly a couple of EU leaders (Meloni, Orban) are Trump lickspittles/mini-mes so there again they'll deny any collective response that offends their best pal.
  - ivan_gammel 1y ago
    Hungary didn’t do anything that would make a big difference in the outcomes because the West does not have enough power to adequately sanction Russia. The real problem was that EU and USA failed to respond in the first year of war by mobilizing their economies for military production. Ukraine needed shells, tanks, air defense etc in much higher volume than allies could provide. Economic sanctions are face-saving measure for European politicians, because that war has never been seen as ours, yet some token response was necessary. Look at how much “solidarity” Ukrainian refugees receive now in Europe, where Poland started deporting people and Germany is cutting financial help. Europe isn’t cowed or poorly led. You just misunderstand its obscure priorities, which are trade, jobs for Ur-Europeans and climate change (which is a real problem here), while pretending that we care about the rest of the world, peace etc.
    - myrmidon 1y ago
      > You just misunderstand its obscure priorities, which are trade, jobs for Ur-Europeans and climate change Are those obscure priorities though? Putting local employment/wellfare/environment first seems justifiable to me, no? I would argue that EU action has been pretty aligned with their actual citizens interests during this whole conflict: - Kept domestic consequences contained (energy price) - Prevented escalation - Scaled up domestic military readiness especially in border nations - Hurt destabilizing Russian expansionism via sanctions/secondhand arms almost for free I would much prefer a principled, strongly voiced NO to neo-imperialism in the form of massive support and intervention. But would that be in the best interest of most voters? I'd argue no.
- lifeisstillgood 1y ago
  Cory Doctorow at keynote in Pycon this year said pretty much the same thing - now that tariffs had imposed the cost that US always used as a threat to get their own way, what’s to lose now? I tend to agree but 1. We risk Balkanisation of the internet 2. Enforcing interactivity (sharing posts between instagram and X sounds lovely) but the search and discovery is still the secret sauce - and once you regulate that the only fair way is a time based feed - which will just end looking like a sped up version of the Matrix screen 3. If we do this, we don’t get our own (European) unicorns - what we get is regulated utilities (which let’s face it is the destination of search and posting text or photos). The power of social media is the power of a phone in every frigging pocket of every adult on the planet. So we end up with normcore social media, partly because regulation will ramp down the extreme reactions of the algorithm, and partly because LLMs will replace a lot of queries, and they are mostly normcore because they are based on every written word ever, and that is a huge anti-extremism weighting
  - marcinzm 1y ago
    > what’s to lose now? The natural gas supply among other things. Europe has made itself first dependent on Russia and then on the US for the basic survival of its population.
    - ivan_gammel 1y ago
      You underestimate how fast Europe in crisis can reactivate direct imports from Russia. Trump pushing for peace doesn’t understand that it will also open the way for lifting sanctions on Russian energy sector. If he succeeds but alienates Europe, that will inevitably happen. We are back in the age of realpolitik.
      - marcinzm 1y ago
        Handing over a loaded gun pointed at your head from one dictator to another is hardly a wining strategy. You also underestimate how much Russia and the US are likely colluding.
      - 1y ago
- pembrook 1y ago
  [flagged]
- throw2432234 1y ago
  Like any other country that relies on US, is doing so much better! US sucks as an ally! Please do not cover it up under "big tech"! If we would develop local alternatives, there is a good chance US will bomb them!
- nikanj 1y ago
  It's impossible to divest from US-based Big Tech as long as the average citizen is 100% addicted to Google and Meta products.
  - cbg0 1y ago
    They're addicted to the content, not the apps themselves. If they no longer had access to Instagram tomorrow, and had to use another app which offered the same content, most users would switch without looking back.
    - VWWHFSfQ 1y ago
      > use another app which offered the same content The content is not on other apps though. Maybe other apps have other content, but it's not the good content that people want.
  - saubeidl 1y ago
    A simple Chinese-style firewall level ban would make it quite simple, actually.
- pzo 1y ago
  the best would be some kind of movement from the bottom that customers start to divest at least from some services. Help closest family and direct friends to: - install Firefox/Zen as main browser - install uBlock Origin - switch to Brave Search / Qwant for search engine - switch to signal for IM for communicating with your parents and loved one (still use WhatsApp elsewhere) - help family setup passkeys using Bitwarden EU - advocate that they don't need to buy the latest android but can get 2nd hand e.g. motorola edge+ (2023) and help setup your parents linageos - when switching router pick one with openwrt support and setup AdGuard on the router (some asus routers already have such things build in)
  - csomar 1y ago
    So divest from American big tech to … new American startup tech? Remind me again of who came up with the phrase “don’t be evil”.
    - pzo 1y ago
      Most of those are open source. Even if not perfect this is still better than doing nothing and still better than perfect but not user friendly.
  - hulitu 1y ago
    > Help closest family and direct friends to: - buy european processors like ... (?) - buy european motherboards like ... (?) - buy european RAM like ... (?) - buy european SSD/harddrives like ... (?) - buy european graphics cards like ... (?) Trully a road to independence. /s
    - pzo 1y ago
      So is better to do nothing because we cannot divest everything right now? You start by divesting partners that are getting complicated (this year US). Apple divest its supplies by using many different partners and stop using one if they having problem with one. EU can for sure get a most of those you mentioned from South Korea and Japan who are also having issues with US. At least with those countries EU has stronger hands than with US.
- fluidcruft 1y ago
  One thing I don't know is the extent to which this stuff goes on all the time but just doesn't typically get air on news. In the past I remember hearing about stories about things hitting (I think) WTO courts. That's much higher up the escalation chain. It seems like to some extent there is an interested audience for this right now so the threshold for what is reportable has shifted. That doesn't necessarily mean anything has actually changed.
  - csomar 1y ago
    Bingo. Same stuff was happening under previous administrations but it was quiet. There is no advantage to airing your laundry. Take the Indian case, by having the deal aired, Indian politicians have had to look tough. The US could have gotten a better deal by making the threat behind closed diplomatic channels. Amateur hour at the white house. (Or shall I say Trump hour?)
- ExoticPearTree 1y ago
  > That said, the correct response would be to slowly and silently divest from US-based Big Tech, fork whatever can be forked, and invest heavily in local services and infrastructure. Europe at least has missed the last couple of trains on this. No one has trillions of dollars to spend and catch up with the US tech sector.
- deadbabe 1y ago
  > If the past few months have taught us anything, it's that Europe is so cowed and poorly-led that they'll knuckle-under and submit to whatever. This is a good thing, because a lot of European led regulation has been pretty terrible.
- terminalshort 1y ago
  But then why hasn't that happened already? The US tech sector didn't develop out of any centralized plan. It's purely a creature of chaos and self interest. What makes you think an equivalent can be formed by central planning? Even if it could, the actions of the EU in regards to censorship show that such a beast would be 1000x worse than the US tech companies it intends to replace.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    That's why I can guarantee you that the EU will not block or eradicate US big-tech from Europe since such a massive trade war with the US will set it back technologically, economically and politically, but it will instead enter into a silent partnership with big-tech where "we'll let you monetize the EU userbase, and in return you'll spy on EU citizens for us through your datacenters here, turning in anyone who protests against us, censor anything we tell you to under "hate speech" laws, and push our propaganda to the top of the algorithm, this way we both win: you get to make money, and we get to keep our seats in power". Basically it will be outsourcing the traditional government censorship, oppression and propaganda work to the tech private sector because it's 1000x more efficient that the government at this, and it also helps keep the image of those in power clean since if they get caught they can throw big-tech under the bus with some fines. It's literally the perfect setup. How do I know this? Is it because I'm clairvoyant or have a tinfoil hat on? No, it's because US big-techs like Apple literally did the same deal for the CCP in China, so now that the can of worms has been opened, all the other countries want the same deal with big-tech. And if you think the EU leadership is somehow morally above these types of practices, boy you couldn't be more wrong. Their unscrupulous use of Israeli Pegasus spy-ware and Palantir surveilance-ware proves they're not, they're cut from the same cloth as the rest. They'll gladly copy the CCP great firewall and give it a coat of blue paint with some gold stars on it and say it's for "protecting your democracy".
    - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
      > And if you think the EU leadership is somehow morally above these types of practices There is no such thing as EU leadership, other than the governments of the 27 members. So it's kinda unlikely that the above would happen (certainly possible but I reckon it's pretty low probability).
- duxup 1y ago
  From the outside it seems like there's no real "leadership" in Europe. I fear that this slowly but surely sets up a sort of "we need our own strong man" vibe over time...
pu_pe 1y ago
This is aimed at the European Union, India and Brazil, who have all recently been mulling Big Tech regulations. It seems to be the reward for the massive support Trump has been given by the tech sector. It's likely the EU will cave but together with other ongoing threats, this might throw India and Brazil closer to China's orbit.
- realusername 1y ago
  I don't see why the EU would cave in, Big Tech is more profitable than anything the EU sells to the US and they are paying close to nothing right now. But the EU leadership is so weak now that we never know, even if it doesn't make sense.
  - mike_hearn 1y ago
    The EU has no leverage. Its own institutions are all 100% Microsoft shops with zero interest in changing that. The US has sanctioned staff at the International Criminal Court meaning MS suspended their Outlook accounts, and the ICC seems to have done .... exactly nothing. The chief prosecutor there had to open up a new personal account at Protonmail instead, although Protonmail keeps talking about leaving Switzerland due to new surveillance laws also so it's unclear how long it'll remain European (and of course Switzerland isn't in the EU anyway). Simply put: can the EU do without US tech? No. Can the EU Commission do without extra tax revenues from US tech? Yes.
    - realusername 1y ago
      The opposite is also true, what Big Tech can do without the EU? It's their most profitable market and it's not like they are going to make up for the loss by selling in China. The US tech industry doesn't have as much leverage as they think they do, the hardest part to replace is the hardware, which mostly isn't built in the US anyways That reminds me of Mark Zukerberg which threatened to leave a while back... and denied it soon after realizing the bluff didn't work.
      - 1y ago
idiotsecant 1y ago
The time of the nation-state is ending and the time of corpo-feudalism is beginning.
- joules77 1y ago
  Have you checked why feudalism ended?
  - KaiserPro 1y ago
    depends where you are looking. In england? started to break due to the black death In russia? Lenin.
  - blamestross 1y ago
    It ended? Just seems a bit more "timeshared" than before. One lord for your labor, another for your land. The illusion of a choice buys a lot of compliance.
- diego_moita 1y ago
  No. A trade war is exactly the affirmation of nation-states power over corporation's interests. Corporations want stable globalization, not trade wars. You might think Trump wants to serve corporations. However, mostly by incompetence, he is doing the opposite.
maelito 1y ago
Citizen boycott is then needed.
- nicbou 1y ago
  As a Canadian it started the moment they threatened to invade their long-term ally.
  - sam_lowry_ 1y ago
    How effective is that?
    - roxolotl 1y ago
      It seems to be having a pretty damaging impact to the US alcohol industry. Not sure if that counts as effective to you but it is having impacts. https://www.wsj.com/business/us-alcohol-industry-canada-boycott-71dbd1e0 https://www.wsj.com/business/us-alcohol-industry-canada-boyc... (Not paywalled) https://archive.is/r8Cxr https://archive.is/r8Cxr
    - jjkaczor 1y ago
      In some areas - like US wine and alcohol sales to Canada - and tourism, according to ongoing news reports it is apparently devastating - they are begging Canadians to buy their products again. In other areas - when the entire Canadian federal (and most provincial and territorial governments - many municipal governments, and of course the entire educational sector due to low-cost licensing) and large-scale industries are completely dependent on Microsoft 365 + Azure platforms (probably AWS as well) - information technology and management usage of US technologies is definitely not being boycotted...
      - jmclnx 1y ago
        It should be very easy to get away from Microsoft products, but management would need to be tough and put their foot down. Plus once the move succeeds the IT budget will probably have a lot of $ freed for other things. I saw an attempt at a very large company to abandon M/S, it was working but there were a huge amount complaints. Then after a couple months, you can guess what happened. Certain people, usually 1st and 2nd level management, got exemptions, then some "important" finance people. Guess what, the move failed because you ended up with 2 tiers of employees, the revolts started happening. After 1 year, the relented and went back to M/S.
CafeRacer 1y ago
I really like how the USA has collapsed in Cyperpunk lore.
- iszomer 1y ago
  I take it you are you a fan of the NUSA lore then? Arasaka ftw.
tho34i5j34545e 1y ago
[flagged]
- grugagag 1y ago
  Whats the alternative?
  - kubb 1y ago
    It’s Russian state ideology: freedom doesn’t actually exist, the only way is a total subordination to a nation state, only certain nations states are allowed to be independent (Russia is one of them), others are to be vasals to us, because of our capacity to make war. If you live in Russia, you need this kind of beliefs.
saubeidl 1y ago
Can the EU finally grow a pair and fight back? Jfc
lieks 1y ago
As a Brazilian, I'm a bit torn on this issue. On the one hand, our social media regulations are terrible, are being approved without due process, and will certainly be used for (political) censorship. On the other hand, it's annoying that the US has to interfere, and concerning that they even can interfere in the first place.
- joules77 1y ago
  Social media is over rated. Ask Assange and Snowden. What happens on social media is of the herd, by the herd, for the herd. As Nietzsche would say like organized religion it produces nothing but a herd or slave morality. It will loose steam just like organized religion.
- subw00f 1y ago
  Give me one example of a social media regulation being approved without "due process" or whatever that means. It's annoying when I stub my toe on the couch or when I drop my slice of bread butter-first. It's a criminal attack on the sovereignty of another nation when the US tries to interfere.
  - bitshiftfaced 1y ago
    > Brazil’s supreme court has ruled that social media platforms can be held legally responsible for users’ posts, in a decision that tightens regulation on technology giants in the country. > Companies such as Facebook, TikTok and X will have to act immediately to remove material such as hate speech, incitement to violence or “anti-democratic acts”, even without a prior judicial takedown order https://www.ft.com/content/4a5235c5-acd0-4e81-9d44-2362a25c8eb3 https://www.ft.com/content/4a5235c5-acd0-4e81-9d44-2362a25c8... Twitter was blocked immediately, without a public hearing or appeal process. > In early May 2023, when the bill was about to be approved, Google and Telegram used their own platforms to express their opposition to the bill to their Brazilian users, and soon after were forced to back down by government institutions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Congressional_Bill_No._2630 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Congressional_Bill... Brazil has a low "Freedom on the Net" rating, "partly free": https://freedomhouse.org/country/brazil/freedom-net/2024# https://freedomhouse.org/country/brazil/freedom-net/2024# .
epolanski 1y ago
I wish our governments in Europe just ate the tariffs. It's time to diversify our ridiculous export-based economies and invest into creating a strong internal market.
- SanjayMehta 1y ago
  As a non-European, I associate your exports with fine and luxury goods, from French wine to Swiss watches to German cars. I don’t see staples coming out of Europe. So I’m wondering what a strong internal market would be?
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    We do make staples. The ones I have here are made in Europe. We don't buy such things from the US (though from China, maybe). I think a lot of it is just not very visible because it's mainly for internal market use. In fact I'm not buying much of anything from the US anymore. If anything to screw up Trump's "trade deficit" even more despite his tariffs.
    - skylurk 1y ago
      These? ;) https://www.stapleheadquarters.com/Fasco_Staples https://www.stapleheadquarters.com/Fasco_Staples But yeah, in the US seems like every consumer good is made in China. In the EU there's still a ton of shit made locally. Appliances from Poland, clothes from Portugal, etc. Brands that Americans would not recognise.
    - SanjayMehta 1y ago
      I guess I wasn’t clear: I meant staple goods not staples as in paper fastening clips.
- wkat4242 1y ago
  Yeah me too. We have to stand up to the bully or it's only getting worse. It's bad enough that von der leyen basically gave away a free trillion for "not getting the worst tariffs imposed on us".
southernplaces7 1y ago
[flagged]
ExoticPearTree 1y ago
Finally! Other countries should create conditions where worthwhile competitors can be founded and thrive, not regulate the crap out of everything.
- diego_moita 1y ago
  > Other countries should The most favorite 3 words of every imperialist gringo. Their least favorite words are probably "sovereignty" and "self determination".
  - ExoticPearTree 1y ago
    I'll bite. North Kora is sovereign and has self determination. Is it good or bad for the people? My gripe is with the EU which feels the need to regulate everything. And my view is that it shouldn't. And if there is someone that can force them to rethink their approach, then I will support that. And yes, other countries should follow the example of the US where everything is permitted unless explicitly denied, and not vice-versa.
    - kubb 1y ago
      I wish they banned big tech products in Europe as retaliation for tariffs. All that money being wasted on what? No value. Keep Microsoft Office and Cloud for a couple of years. Obliterate the rest. S&P would collapse.
    - diego_moita 1y ago
      > Is it good or bad for the people? It is very, very bad. But that is still their problem, not the U.S.'s problem. That is the point of sovereignty. And besides, an U.S.-supported "democracy" is quite often as bad (viz: Chile's Pinochet, Iran's Rheza Pahlevi, etc). > force them > other countries should As a latin-american I say: please, Americans, keep thinking like that. Keep believing in "American exceptionalism". The more you do this kind of nationalist narcissism, the less relevant you'll become. And that's what I want.
diego_moita 1y ago
In the end it will be TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). But each country/place will react differently. Europe, Canada, Japan, Mexico and UK will get scared and just obey, as they've doing all along. India, Brazil and China will mostly just ignore this.
HamsterDan 1y ago
[flagged]
- frm88 1y ago
  The EU and their regulations didn't do that. This was solely the implementation the industries choose to force on us to comply with the law. There is absolutely no need to run your website with cookies/trackers.
saubeidl 1y ago
The EU built an anti-coercion instrument that allows for all sorts of trade measures, including bans from public tenders and no longer recognizing intellectual property. It was built specifically for cases like this and only requires a qualified majority of member states in order to be used. I say it's high time we threaten its use.
jjani 1y ago
Called this a while ago[0]. > What would actually happen is that the US would start seriously threatening (blackmailing) the EU to a degree where it's forced to relent long before Apple would pull out. I'll call another one: The US is only going to do this to the EU and maybe a few other countries whose populace has zero spine and will just submit. A great example of a country that in effect has regulated US big tech far, far more strongly than the EU, and to far more effect, is South Korea. But ironically, this is really never brought up in international spaces, it's always about EU regulation, when they're pretty mild. I'm willing to bet money the US won't threaten Korea much at all, because its public would rightly tell them to fuck off and it would cost the ruling party significant votes. The politicians would have to be super discreet about somehow deregulating without the public noticing. I say this spending my time between both Europe and Korea and being ingrained in both culturally. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44432419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44432419.
- votepaunchy 1y ago
  Oh boy. If you think that Europe is militarily dependent on the United States, wait until you learn about South Korea. That FAFO would be epic.
skylurk 1y ago
Does Big Tech actually want this? Seems like a huge risk for them.
EdiX 1y ago
The European Union needs to immediately build its own sovereign ecosystem where its citizens will finally be able to enjoy the full protections of EU regulations, such as chat control, digital ID laws and censorship of vaguely defined "hate speech". We need to fight the Washington fashists who want to deprive us of our "democracy with european characteristics".
CMay 1y ago
Since the article is very low quality, let me try to fill in some context. In the US, our constitution's first amendment is taken fairly seriously (by many, not all): - https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/ - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The way we think of it, is that government has no business shaping the speech of the people, because the speech of the people can shape the government. Government has to be able to flexibly change to meet the times and if governments decides it doesn't want to change, it can just silence people who would risk changing it without making it obvious they are being targeted. We all know that whenever government thinks it sees a threat to society or to the country, real or imagined, it will lash out in all directions to solve it. We just want to make sure speech control is not one of those directions. Now, we have the internet and it is not escaping regulation. Companies can be free to decide what is and isn't on their platforms. They are not the government and the first amendment is not about all forms of censorship, just government influenced censorship in spirit. Obviously, the big tech companies operate in many countries with many different languages and in cases where the local government requires censorship in some language most people in the US don't even speak, the negative impact is limited. A lot of people speak English, however and increasingly whenever some censorship law is applied in some new country its influence on English speaking content grows the more people from those countries use the same platforms as people in other countries do. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-admin-weighs-sanctions-on-eu-officials-over-digital-services-act-reuters-reports/ar-AA1Lchft https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-admin-weighs-sanc... - "The Digital Services Act, a flagship EU law, requires large online platforms to take stronger action against illegal content, including hate speech and child sexual abuse material. The law, according to EU officials, aims to make the digital environment safer while preserving freedom of expression." - "U.S. critics, however, argue that the DSA imposes "undue" restrictions on free speech and disproportionately impacts American platforms. In an internal directive issued in early August, Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructed U.S. diplomats across Europe to raise objections to the law and encourage EU governments and digital regulators to consider amending or repealing it." That law came into effect in 2022 and in can be viewed as bad in multiple ways: 1. It is government regulating "speech" in a more broadly defined way at an also broader scale, not companies. This would be considered unconstitutional here in the US. 2. The technical complexity of it encourages applying a lowest common denominator censorship across all content, applying it to even countries where the laws aren't applicable (for example, inside the US). So, it is effectively being applied in the US already and would be unconstitutional. 3. Many of the forms of censored speech are more commonly applied to conservatives and this can decrease the conservative participation on these platforms, which then means increasingly people are exposed to much higher majority left-leaning content. 4. It would be good for the CCP. It wants to expand the censorship of speech so that other countries look more favorably at their internal approach to it. It also wants to expand the influence of left-leaning thought, because it wants communism to be seen more favorably. It's not impossible that the goal for global communism never actually died and China's rapid growth has emboldened them. https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115092243259973570 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1150922432599... - "As the President of the United States, I will stand up to Countries that attack our incredible American Tech Companies. Digital Taxes, Digital Services Legislation, and Digital Markets Regulations are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology. They also, outrageously, give a complete pass to China's largest Tech Companies. This must end, and end NOW! With this TRUTH, I put all Countries with Digital Taxes, Legislation, Rules, or Regulations, on notice that unless these discriminatory actions are removed, I, as President of the United States, will impose substantial additional Tariffs on that Country's Exports to the U.S.A., and institute Export restrictions on our Highly Protected Technology and Chips. America, and American Technology Companies, are neither the “piggy bank” nor the “doormat” of the World any longer. Show respect to America and our amazing Tech Companies or, consider the consequences! Thank you for your attention to this matter. DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" In a sense, if US companies don't censor at foreign government's demands, then they can be fined. If it is unreasonable or impossible and it simply becomes perpetual fines, it can also be seen as a basic tax to use big tech companies as another source of money to extract. The money is not necessarily the critical issue, though it will probably be seen in terms of the trade imbalance that Trump is trying to sort out. Fundamentally it is probably about putting pressure on these laws to get them either amended or repealed. Personally, if I reflect on it and history, this may very well be a national security issue. Not only for the US. At the same time with the rise of AI, there's a risk that unregulated digital speech can also become a national security issue in a much more dangerous way through automation. That line of thinking where, you might be a bot and bots aren't people, so it's ok to silence you! That's a very real dilemma. For the moment at least, I have no sympathy for the EU on this argument and find their government censorship push unconvincing as a global good. There may be others that know more about this, but this is just my understanding and perspective of it as a Texan.
penguin_booze 1y ago
In an ideal world, other nations would have been in a position to impose sanctions on the US and/or declare US (this administration, rather) a pariah state. We are definitely not there, for a variety of reasons. Let this be a cautionary tale. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the next best time is now.

122 points by belter 1y ago

Oh god. A friend of mine quotes a writer: "The old world is dying. The new is slow to be born: now is the time of monsters." And this is the only framework I can look to this news with. Either that or mercantilism, I'm told.

gsf_emergency_2 1y ago
The original quote from Gramsci opens this essay: https://www.lacittafutura.it/cultura/il-vecchio-muore-e-il-nuovo-non-puo-nascere https://www.lacittafutura.it/cultura/il-vecchio-muore-e-il-n...

A_D_E_P_T 1y ago

If the past few months have taught us anything, it's that Europe is so cowed and poorly-led that they'll knuckle-under and submit to whatever. In fact, if this is true, they probably won't even invest in local alternatives for fear of retaliation. That said, the correct response would be to slowly and silently divest from US-based Big Tech, fork whatever can be forked, and invest heavily in local services and infrastructure.

sleepyguy 1y ago
>If the past few months have taught us anything, it's that Europe is so cowed and poorly-led that they'll knuckle-under and submit to whatever. Past few months? Just look at their response to security and Russian aggression. I lost hope years ago.
bboygravity 1y ago
I'm in EU and maybe my opinion is controversial, but I think there's something very positive for EU citizens about Trump using tarrifs to pressure the EU politically. Why? Because it's basically our only hope of slowing down the evolution towards a centralized totalitarian EU government. It's pretty obvious that the EU wants to ban free speech (online) ASAP and fully control the public political narrative ASAP. I feel the US/Trump is our only hope of slowing this down as a guarantee of (future) true democracy at the EU level essentially doesn't exist for us any other way. The EU sees China as an example to follow and I feel Trump/US is the only thing trying to stop EU leadership of going there.
- wkat4242 1y ago
  Except Trump is just as authoritarian as China so what difference does it make who they adore?
  - ExoticPearTree 1y ago
    > Except Trump is just as authoritarian as China so what difference does it make who they adore? How do you figure?
    - wkat4242 1y ago
      Oh maybe you haven't seen the news, sorry. The capitol storming and freeing all that participated. Having major cities being taken over by the army. Stifling free press. You know all that good old dictatorship playbook stuff.
      - ExoticPearTree 1y ago
        > The capitol storming and freeing all that participated. I don't have an opinion on that. It is the president's prerogative to pardon whoever he wants, no justification necessary. > Having major cities being taken over by the army. That is the National Guard. Not the same thing as the Army. The Army would be a very bad option should that happen. The cities are not taken over. The mayor/police chief of those cities have no desire to reign in crime, the federal government has to step in. Depending on your political views, this is a good thing or a bad thing. Bottom line is that people much more safer now in DC than they were 2-3 weeks ago. > Stifling free press. For this I have zero information. Link(s)?
        computerthings 1y ago
        [dead]
        myvoiceismypass 1y ago
        > The cities are not taken over. The mayor/police chief of those cities have no desire to reign in crime, the federal government has to step in. Depending on your political views, this is a good thing or a bad thing. Bottom line is that people much more safer now in DC than they were 2-3 weeks ago. I find that the people who make statements like this don't actually live in cities. Its like you got your talking points from Stephen Miller.
thrance 1y ago
I think the correct response would be to immediately ban Facebook and Twitter, to make the worst oligarchs reconsider their support of Trump and show that Europe means it (one can always dream). I don't believe slow and silent are the correct stances to adopt when the global economy is held at the whims of this egotistical manchild.
- marcinzm 1y ago
  Trump can make drastic course changes much faster than Europe can ever agree on any strategy. Trying to match Trump's approach of drastic responses is a losing strategy for Europe. All Trump has to do is put 200% tariffs on LNG exports right as winter starts or something similar. Democratic governments don't last long when their population literally starts to freeze to death.
  - thrance 1y ago
    Yes, my ban of Twitter and Facebook is pure wishful thinking, I know that. But ultimately, it's a war of attrition, and it's the US vs the World. The US economy is alreay starting to show cracks, I don't think de-escalation is the way.
  - ivan_gammel 1y ago
    Nah. If Trump does that you will see how fast the Nord Stream 1/2 can be fixed.
    - marcinzm 1y ago
      I like how Europe's solution to Trump is to make itself a puppet of an even worse dictator. While expecting the worse dictator to not use that leverage to take over more of Europe. Who will charge 100% tariffs as well since a weak Europe is to their advantage as well.
      - ivan_gammel 1y ago
        This is not what will happen at all. I won’t go here into much detail, but the thing is, there’s a demand in Europe that cannot be fulfilled from other sources for the time being. Europe is not going to fix America or Russia, so it has to trade with them. It is a huge market for both, that cannot be ignored, and access to that market won’t be sold cheap. If they have to compete to sell us gas, great. The lesson has been learned anyway, emission targets will be hit, alternative energy sources will make us much less dependent within next 15-20 years.
llm_nerd 1y ago
>it's that Europe is so cowed and poorly-led If you have a 27 country bloc and are rationally limited to the actions of the most timid or compromised, it's pretty easy to manipulate the actions of the whole. We know Hungary is effectively a Russia proxy, for instance, and has massively influenced the response to Russia. Similarly a couple of EU leaders (Meloni, Orban) are Trump lickspittles/mini-mes so there again they'll deny any collective response that offends their best pal.
- ivan_gammel 1y ago
  Hungary didn’t do anything that would make a big difference in the outcomes because the West does not have enough power to adequately sanction Russia. The real problem was that EU and USA failed to respond in the first year of war by mobilizing their economies for military production. Ukraine needed shells, tanks, air defense etc in much higher volume than allies could provide. Economic sanctions are face-saving measure for European politicians, because that war has never been seen as ours, yet some token response was necessary. Look at how much “solidarity” Ukrainian refugees receive now in Europe, where Poland started deporting people and Germany is cutting financial help. Europe isn’t cowed or poorly led. You just misunderstand its obscure priorities, which are trade, jobs for Ur-Europeans and climate change (which is a real problem here), while pretending that we care about the rest of the world, peace etc.
  - myrmidon 1y ago
    > You just misunderstand its obscure priorities, which are trade, jobs for Ur-Europeans and climate change Are those obscure priorities though? Putting local employment/wellfare/environment first seems justifiable to me, no? I would argue that EU action has been pretty aligned with their actual citizens interests during this whole conflict: - Kept domestic consequences contained (energy price) - Prevented escalation - Scaled up domestic military readiness especially in border nations - Hurt destabilizing Russian expansionism via sanctions/secondhand arms almost for free I would much prefer a principled, strongly voiced NO to neo-imperialism in the form of massive support and intervention. But would that be in the best interest of most voters? I'd argue no.
lifeisstillgood 1y ago
Cory Doctorow at keynote in Pycon this year said pretty much the same thing - now that tariffs had imposed the cost that US always used as a threat to get their own way, what’s to lose now? I tend to agree but 1. We risk Balkanisation of the internet 2. Enforcing interactivity (sharing posts between instagram and X sounds lovely) but the search and discovery is still the secret sauce - and once you regulate that the only fair way is a time based feed - which will just end looking like a sped up version of the Matrix screen 3. If we do this, we don’t get our own (European) unicorns - what we get is regulated utilities (which let’s face it is the destination of search and posting text or photos). The power of social media is the power of a phone in every frigging pocket of every adult on the planet. So we end up with normcore social media, partly because regulation will ramp down the extreme reactions of the algorithm, and partly because LLMs will replace a lot of queries, and they are mostly normcore because they are based on every written word ever, and that is a huge anti-extremism weighting
- marcinzm 1y ago
  > what’s to lose now? The natural gas supply among other things. Europe has made itself first dependent on Russia and then on the US for the basic survival of its population.
  - ivan_gammel 1y ago
    You underestimate how fast Europe in crisis can reactivate direct imports from Russia. Trump pushing for peace doesn’t understand that it will also open the way for lifting sanctions on Russian energy sector. If he succeeds but alienates Europe, that will inevitably happen. We are back in the age of realpolitik.
    - marcinzm 1y ago
      Handing over a loaded gun pointed at your head from one dictator to another is hardly a wining strategy. You also underestimate how much Russia and the US are likely colluding.
    - 1y ago
pembrook 1y ago
[flagged]
throw2432234 1y ago
Like any other country that relies on US, is doing so much better! US sucks as an ally! Please do not cover it up under "big tech"! If we would develop local alternatives, there is a good chance US will bomb them!
nikanj 1y ago
It's impossible to divest from US-based Big Tech as long as the average citizen is 100% addicted to Google and Meta products.
- cbg0 1y ago
  They're addicted to the content, not the apps themselves. If they no longer had access to Instagram tomorrow, and had to use another app which offered the same content, most users would switch without looking back.
  - VWWHFSfQ 1y ago
    > use another app which offered the same content The content is not on other apps though. Maybe other apps have other content, but it's not the good content that people want.
- saubeidl 1y ago
  A simple Chinese-style firewall level ban would make it quite simple, actually.
pzo 1y ago
the best would be some kind of movement from the bottom that customers start to divest at least from some services. Help closest family and direct friends to: - install Firefox/Zen as main browser - install uBlock Origin - switch to Brave Search / Qwant for search engine - switch to signal for IM for communicating with your parents and loved one (still use WhatsApp elsewhere) - help family setup passkeys using Bitwarden EU - advocate that they don't need to buy the latest android but can get 2nd hand e.g. motorola edge+ (2023) and help setup your parents linageos - when switching router pick one with openwrt support and setup AdGuard on the router (some asus routers already have such things build in)
- csomar 1y ago
  So divest from American big tech to … new American startup tech? Remind me again of who came up with the phrase “don’t be evil”.
  - pzo 1y ago
    Most of those are open source. Even if not perfect this is still better than doing nothing and still better than perfect but not user friendly.
- hulitu 1y ago
  > Help closest family and direct friends to: - buy european processors like ... (?) - buy european motherboards like ... (?) - buy european RAM like ... (?) - buy european SSD/harddrives like ... (?) - buy european graphics cards like ... (?) Trully a road to independence. /s
  - pzo 1y ago
    So is better to do nothing because we cannot divest everything right now? You start by divesting partners that are getting complicated (this year US). Apple divest its supplies by using many different partners and stop using one if they having problem with one. EU can for sure get a most of those you mentioned from South Korea and Japan who are also having issues with US. At least with those countries EU has stronger hands than with US.
fluidcruft 1y ago
One thing I don't know is the extent to which this stuff goes on all the time but just doesn't typically get air on news. In the past I remember hearing about stories about things hitting (I think) WTO courts. That's much higher up the escalation chain. It seems like to some extent there is an interested audience for this right now so the threshold for what is reportable has shifted. That doesn't necessarily mean anything has actually changed.
- csomar 1y ago
  Bingo. Same stuff was happening under previous administrations but it was quiet. There is no advantage to airing your laundry. Take the Indian case, by having the deal aired, Indian politicians have had to look tough. The US could have gotten a better deal by making the threat behind closed diplomatic channels. Amateur hour at the white house. (Or shall I say Trump hour?)
ExoticPearTree 1y ago
> That said, the correct response would be to slowly and silently divest from US-based Big Tech, fork whatever can be forked, and invest heavily in local services and infrastructure. Europe at least has missed the last couple of trains on this. No one has trillions of dollars to spend and catch up with the US tech sector.
deadbabe 1y ago
> If the past few months have taught us anything, it's that Europe is so cowed and poorly-led that they'll knuckle-under and submit to whatever. This is a good thing, because a lot of European led regulation has been pretty terrible.
terminalshort 1y ago
But then why hasn't that happened already? The US tech sector didn't develop out of any centralized plan. It's purely a creature of chaos and self interest. What makes you think an equivalent can be formed by central planning? Even if it could, the actions of the EU in regards to censorship show that such a beast would be 1000x worse than the US tech companies it intends to replace.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  That's why I can guarantee you that the EU will not block or eradicate US big-tech from Europe since such a massive trade war with the US will set it back technologically, economically and politically, but it will instead enter into a silent partnership with big-tech where "we'll let you monetize the EU userbase, and in return you'll spy on EU citizens for us through your datacenters here, turning in anyone who protests against us, censor anything we tell you to under "hate speech" laws, and push our propaganda to the top of the algorithm, this way we both win: you get to make money, and we get to keep our seats in power". Basically it will be outsourcing the traditional government censorship, oppression and propaganda work to the tech private sector because it's 1000x more efficient that the government at this, and it also helps keep the image of those in power clean since if they get caught they can throw big-tech under the bus with some fines. It's literally the perfect setup. How do I know this? Is it because I'm clairvoyant or have a tinfoil hat on? No, it's because US big-techs like Apple literally did the same deal for the CCP in China, so now that the can of worms has been opened, all the other countries want the same deal with big-tech. And if you think the EU leadership is somehow morally above these types of practices, boy you couldn't be more wrong. Their unscrupulous use of Israeli Pegasus spy-ware and Palantir surveilance-ware proves they're not, they're cut from the same cloth as the rest. They'll gladly copy the CCP great firewall and give it a coat of blue paint with some gold stars on it and say it's for "protecting your democracy".
  - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
    > And if you think the EU leadership is somehow morally above these types of practices There is no such thing as EU leadership, other than the governments of the 27 members. So it's kinda unlikely that the above would happen (certainly possible but I reckon it's pretty low probability).
duxup 1y ago
From the outside it seems like there's no real "leadership" in Europe. I fear that this slowly but surely sets up a sort of "we need our own strong man" vibe over time...

pu_pe 1y ago

This is aimed at the European Union, India and Brazil, who have all recently been mulling Big Tech regulations. It seems to be the reward for the massive support Trump has been given by the tech sector. It's likely the EU will cave but together with other ongoing threats, this might throw India and Brazil closer to China's orbit.

realusername 1y ago
I don't see why the EU would cave in, Big Tech is more profitable than anything the EU sells to the US and they are paying close to nothing right now. But the EU leadership is so weak now that we never know, even if it doesn't make sense.
- mike_hearn 1y ago
  The EU has no leverage. Its own institutions are all 100% Microsoft shops with zero interest in changing that. The US has sanctioned staff at the International Criminal Court meaning MS suspended their Outlook accounts, and the ICC seems to have done .... exactly nothing. The chief prosecutor there had to open up a new personal account at Protonmail instead, although Protonmail keeps talking about leaving Switzerland due to new surveillance laws also so it's unclear how long it'll remain European (and of course Switzerland isn't in the EU anyway). Simply put: can the EU do without US tech? No. Can the EU Commission do without extra tax revenues from US tech? Yes.
  - realusername 1y ago
    The opposite is also true, what Big Tech can do without the EU? It's their most profitable market and it's not like they are going to make up for the loss by selling in China. The US tech industry doesn't have as much leverage as they think they do, the hardest part to replace is the hardware, which mostly isn't built in the US anyways That reminds me of Mark Zukerberg which threatened to leave a while back... and denied it soon after realizing the bluff didn't work.
    - 1y ago

idiotsecant 1y ago

The time of the nation-state is ending and the time of corpo-feudalism is beginning.

joules77 1y ago
Have you checked why feudalism ended?
- KaiserPro 1y ago
  depends where you are looking. In england? started to break due to the black death In russia? Lenin.
- blamestross 1y ago
  It ended? Just seems a bit more "timeshared" than before. One lord for your labor, another for your land. The illusion of a choice buys a lot of compliance.
diego_moita 1y ago
No. A trade war is exactly the affirmation of nation-states power over corporation's interests. Corporations want stable globalization, not trade wars. You might think Trump wants to serve corporations. However, mostly by incompetence, he is doing the opposite.

maelito 1y ago

Citizen boycott is then needed.

nicbou 1y ago
As a Canadian it started the moment they threatened to invade their long-term ally.
- sam_lowry_ 1y ago
  How effective is that?
  - roxolotl 1y ago
    It seems to be having a pretty damaging impact to the US alcohol industry. Not sure if that counts as effective to you but it is having impacts. https://www.wsj.com/business/us-alcohol-industry-canada-boycott-71dbd1e0 https://www.wsj.com/business/us-alcohol-industry-canada-boyc... (Not paywalled) https://archive.is/r8Cxr https://archive.is/r8Cxr
  - jjkaczor 1y ago
    In some areas - like US wine and alcohol sales to Canada - and tourism, according to ongoing news reports it is apparently devastating - they are begging Canadians to buy their products again. In other areas - when the entire Canadian federal (and most provincial and territorial governments - many municipal governments, and of course the entire educational sector due to low-cost licensing) and large-scale industries are completely dependent on Microsoft 365 + Azure platforms (probably AWS as well) - information technology and management usage of US technologies is definitely not being boycotted...
    - jmclnx 1y ago
      It should be very easy to get away from Microsoft products, but management would need to be tough and put their foot down. Plus once the move succeeds the IT budget will probably have a lot of $ freed for other things. I saw an attempt at a very large company to abandon M/S, it was working but there were a huge amount complaints. Then after a couple months, you can guess what happened. Certain people, usually 1st and 2nd level management, got exemptions, then some "important" finance people. Guess what, the move failed because you ended up with 2 tiers of employees, the revolts started happening. After 1 year, the relented and went back to M/S.

CafeRacer 1y ago

I really like how the USA has collapsed in Cyperpunk lore.

iszomer 1y ago
I take it you are you a fan of the NUSA lore then? Arasaka ftw.

tho34i5j34545e 1y ago

[flagged]

grugagag 1y ago
Whats the alternative?
- kubb 1y ago
  It’s Russian state ideology: freedom doesn’t actually exist, the only way is a total subordination to a nation state, only certain nations states are allowed to be independent (Russia is one of them), others are to be vasals to us, because of our capacity to make war. If you live in Russia, you need this kind of beliefs.

saubeidl 1y ago

Can the EU finally grow a pair and fight back? Jfc

lieks 1y ago

As a Brazilian, I'm a bit torn on this issue. On the one hand, our social media regulations are terrible, are being approved without due process, and will certainly be used for (political) censorship. On the other hand, it's annoying that the US has to interfere, and concerning that they even can interfere in the first place.

joules77 1y ago
Social media is over rated. Ask Assange and Snowden. What happens on social media is of the herd, by the herd, for the herd. As Nietzsche would say like organized religion it produces nothing but a herd or slave morality. It will loose steam just like organized religion.
subw00f 1y ago
Give me one example of a social media regulation being approved without "due process" or whatever that means. It's annoying when I stub my toe on the couch or when I drop my slice of bread butter-first. It's a criminal attack on the sovereignty of another nation when the US tries to interfere.
- bitshiftfaced 1y ago
  > Brazil’s supreme court has ruled that social media platforms can be held legally responsible for users’ posts, in a decision that tightens regulation on technology giants in the country. > Companies such as Facebook, TikTok and X will have to act immediately to remove material such as hate speech, incitement to violence or “anti-democratic acts”, even without a prior judicial takedown order https://www.ft.com/content/4a5235c5-acd0-4e81-9d44-2362a25c8eb3 https://www.ft.com/content/4a5235c5-acd0-4e81-9d44-2362a25c8... Twitter was blocked immediately, without a public hearing or appeal process. > In early May 2023, when the bill was about to be approved, Google and Telegram used their own platforms to express their opposition to the bill to their Brazilian users, and soon after were forced to back down by government institutions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Congressional_Bill_No._2630 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Congressional_Bill... Brazil has a low "Freedom on the Net" rating, "partly free": https://freedomhouse.org/country/brazil/freedom-net/2024# https://freedomhouse.org/country/brazil/freedom-net/2024# .

epolanski 1y ago

I wish our governments in Europe just ate the tariffs. It's time to diversify our ridiculous export-based economies and invest into creating a strong internal market.

SanjayMehta 1y ago
As a non-European, I associate your exports with fine and luxury goods, from French wine to Swiss watches to German cars. I don’t see staples coming out of Europe. So I’m wondering what a strong internal market would be?
- wkat4242 1y ago
  We do make staples. The ones I have here are made in Europe. We don't buy such things from the US (though from China, maybe). I think a lot of it is just not very visible because it's mainly for internal market use. In fact I'm not buying much of anything from the US anymore. If anything to screw up Trump's "trade deficit" even more despite his tariffs.
  - skylurk 1y ago
    These? ;) https://www.stapleheadquarters.com/Fasco_Staples https://www.stapleheadquarters.com/Fasco_Staples But yeah, in the US seems like every consumer good is made in China. In the EU there's still a ton of shit made locally. Appliances from Poland, clothes from Portugal, etc. Brands that Americans would not recognise.
  - SanjayMehta 1y ago
    I guess I wasn’t clear: I meant staple goods not staples as in paper fastening clips.
wkat4242 1y ago
Yeah me too. We have to stand up to the bully or it's only getting worse. It's bad enough that von der leyen basically gave away a free trillion for "not getting the worst tariffs imposed on us".

southernplaces7 1y ago

[flagged]

ExoticPearTree 1y ago

Finally! Other countries should create conditions where worthwhile competitors can be founded and thrive, not regulate the crap out of everything.

diego_moita 1y ago
> Other countries should The most favorite 3 words of every imperialist gringo. Their least favorite words are probably "sovereignty" and "self determination".
- ExoticPearTree 1y ago
  I'll bite. North Kora is sovereign and has self determination. Is it good or bad for the people? My gripe is with the EU which feels the need to regulate everything. And my view is that it shouldn't. And if there is someone that can force them to rethink their approach, then I will support that. And yes, other countries should follow the example of the US where everything is permitted unless explicitly denied, and not vice-versa.
  - kubb 1y ago
    I wish they banned big tech products in Europe as retaliation for tariffs. All that money being wasted on what? No value. Keep Microsoft Office and Cloud for a couple of years. Obliterate the rest. S&P would collapse.
  - diego_moita 1y ago
    > Is it good or bad for the people? It is very, very bad. But that is still their problem, not the U.S.'s problem. That is the point of sovereignty. And besides, an U.S.-supported "democracy" is quite often as bad (viz: Chile's Pinochet, Iran's Rheza Pahlevi, etc). > force them > other countries should As a latin-american I say: please, Americans, keep thinking like that. Keep believing in "American exceptionalism". The more you do this kind of nationalist narcissism, the less relevant you'll become. And that's what I want.

diego_moita 1y ago

In the end it will be TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). But each country/place will react differently. Europe, Canada, Japan, Mexico and UK will get scared and just obey, as they've doing all along. India, Brazil and China will mostly just ignore this.

HamsterDan 1y ago

[flagged]

frm88 1y ago
The EU and their regulations didn't do that. This was solely the implementation the industries choose to force on us to comply with the law. There is absolutely no need to run your website with cookies/trackers.

saubeidl 1y ago

The EU built an anti-coercion instrument that allows for all sorts of trade measures, including bans from public tenders and no longer recognizing intellectual property. It was built specifically for cases like this and only requires a qualified majority of member states in order to be used. I say it's high time we threaten its use.

jjani 1y ago

Called this a while ago[0]. > What would actually happen is that the US would start seriously threatening (blackmailing) the EU to a degree where it's forced to relent long before Apple would pull out. I'll call another one: The US is only going to do this to the EU and maybe a few other countries whose populace has zero spine and will just submit. A great example of a country that in effect has regulated US big tech far, far more strongly than the EU, and to far more effect, is South Korea. But ironically, this is really never brought up in international spaces, it's always about EU regulation, when they're pretty mild. I'm willing to bet money the US won't threaten Korea much at all, because its public would rightly tell them to fuck off and it would cost the ruling party significant votes. The politicians would have to be super discreet about somehow deregulating without the public noticing. I say this spending my time between both Europe and Korea and being ingrained in both culturally. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44432419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44432419.

votepaunchy 1y ago
Oh boy. If you think that Europe is militarily dependent on the United States, wait until you learn about South Korea. That FAFO would be epic.

skylurk 1y ago

Does Big Tech actually want this? Seems like a huge risk for them.

EdiX 1y ago

The European Union needs to immediately build its own sovereign ecosystem where its citizens will finally be able to enjoy the full protections of EU regulations, such as chat control, digital ID laws and censorship of vaguely defined "hate speech". We need to fight the Washington fashists who want to deprive us of our "democracy with european characteristics".

CMay 1y ago

Since the article is very low quality, let me try to fill in some context. In the US, our constitution's first amendment is taken fairly seriously (by many, not all): - https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/ - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The way we think of it, is that government has no business shaping the speech of the people, because the speech of the people can shape the government. Government has to be able to flexibly change to meet the times and if governments decides it doesn't want to change, it can just silence people who would risk changing it without making it obvious they are being targeted. We all know that whenever government thinks it sees a threat to society or to the country, real or imagined, it will lash out in all directions to solve it. We just want to make sure speech control is not one of those directions. Now, we have the internet and it is not escaping regulation. Companies can be free to decide what is and isn't on their platforms. They are not the government and the first amendment is not about all forms of censorship, just government influenced censorship in spirit. Obviously, the big tech companies operate in many countries with many different languages and in cases where the local government requires censorship in some language most people in the US don't even speak, the negative impact is limited. A lot of people speak English, however and increasingly whenever some censorship law is applied in some new country its influence on English speaking content grows the more people from those countries use the same platforms as people in other countries do. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-admin-weighs-sanctions-on-eu-officials-over-digital-services-act-reuters-reports/ar-AA1Lchft https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-admin-weighs-sanc... - "The Digital Services Act, a flagship EU law, requires large online platforms to take stronger action against illegal content, including hate speech and child sexual abuse material. The law, according to EU officials, aims to make the digital environment safer while preserving freedom of expression." - "U.S. critics, however, argue that the DSA imposes "undue" restrictions on free speech and disproportionately impacts American platforms. In an internal directive issued in early August, Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructed U.S. diplomats across Europe to raise objections to the law and encourage EU governments and digital regulators to consider amending or repealing it." That law came into effect in 2022 and in can be viewed as bad in multiple ways: 1. It is government regulating "speech" in a more broadly defined way at an also broader scale, not companies. This would be considered unconstitutional here in the US. 2. The technical complexity of it encourages applying a lowest common denominator censorship across all content, applying it to even countries where the laws aren't applicable (for example, inside the US). So, it is effectively being applied in the US already and would be unconstitutional. 3. Many of the forms of censored speech are more commonly applied to conservatives and this can decrease the conservative participation on these platforms, which then means increasingly people are exposed to much higher majority left-leaning content. 4. It would be good for the CCP. It wants to expand the censorship of speech so that other countries look more favorably at their internal approach to it. It also wants to expand the influence of left-leaning thought, because it wants communism to be seen more favorably. It's not impossible that the goal for global communism never actually died and China's rapid growth has emboldened them. https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115092243259973570 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1150922432599... - "As the President of the United States, I will stand up to Countries that attack our incredible American Tech Companies. Digital Taxes, Digital Services Legislation, and Digital Markets Regulations are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology. They also, outrageously, give a complete pass to China's largest Tech Companies. This must end, and end NOW! With this TRUTH, I put all Countries with Digital Taxes, Legislation, Rules, or Regulations, on notice that unless these discriminatory actions are removed, I, as President of the United States, will impose substantial additional Tariffs on that Country's Exports to the U.S.A., and institute Export restrictions on our Highly Protected Technology and Chips. America, and American Technology Companies, are neither the “piggy bank” nor the “doormat” of the World any longer. Show respect to America and our amazing Tech Companies or, consider the consequences! Thank you for your attention to this matter. DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" In a sense, if US companies don't censor at foreign government's demands, then they can be fined. If it is unreasonable or impossible and it simply becomes perpetual fines, it can also be seen as a basic tax to use big tech companies as another source of money to extract. The money is not necessarily the critical issue, though it will probably be seen in terms of the trade imbalance that Trump is trying to sort out. Fundamentally it is probably about putting pressure on these laws to get them either amended or repealed. Personally, if I reflect on it and history, this may very well be a national security issue. Not only for the US. At the same time with the rise of AI, there's a risk that unregulated digital speech can also become a national security issue in a much more dangerous way through automation. That line of thinking where, you might be a bot and bots aren't people, so it's ok to silence you! That's a very real dilemma. For the moment at least, I have no sympathy for the EU on this argument and find their government censorship push unconvincing as a global good. There may be others that know more about this, but this is just my understanding and perspective of it as a Texan.

penguin_booze 1y ago

In an ideal world, other nations would have been in a position to impose sanctions on the US and/or declare US (this administration, rather) a pariah state. We are definitely not there, for a variety of reasons. Let this be a cautionary tale. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the next best time is now.