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Europeans are effortposting on X right now, centering around a reported $140 million fine apparently for how X changed the blue checkmark and restricted API access to researchers. But this comes at a time when Europeans are bearing down on Musk for not curating feeds based on the opinions of paid 'misinformation experts', an industry effectively invented post-2016 election.
It is a terrible look for Europe. They are falling behind China and the US economically while acting as the global regulators for industries they are no longer capable of building themselves. Their posture has become so hostile to business that Apple is now withholding major features from the European market. Jamie Dimon just sounded the alarm on how their hulking regulatory regime is dragging down their ability to innovate, warning that they’ve effectively driven investment out.
My impression of European bureaucrats in the last 24 hours is of a body staffed by a bunch of snooty has-beens. The economist Robin Brooks has been noting the deep hypocrisy here too: their moralizing doesn't match their actions on things like Ukraine, given they are still buying endless amounts of Russian oil via backchannels and refineries in places like India.
The free speech thing is really annoying too. I was actually surprised to see Trump hold back on this when meeting PM Starmer in Scotland. There is a real and serious difference in free speech between our nations. As an American, I can express myself without fear that some busybody will knock on my door.
It’s upsetting because while things might have been less turbulent under Harris, I’m truly glad that the attempt to codify a global regime of 'acceptable' online speech has met resistance. It’s odd to think that we nearly saw a unification of US/EU efforts on this front, importing their safetyism to our shores.
Europe is and always will be our friend, but they’re not on their game right now. The reactions aren't principled—they’re distasteful.
I am not the biggest fan of European attitude towards free speech, but it's amusing to see how it just displays the ignorance of Americans to think that something has fundamentally changed in Europe in relation to the treatment of free speech when it has always been like this in Europe. Nowadays the issue is just that speech is increasingly online. I think it's far to criticize Europe, but I think most of the dunking coming from US actors are in terribly bad faith and nonsensical. You have the most brazenly corrupt president in the history of US and country full of non-White immigrants (with VP's wife being Indian for god's sake), and we get lectured for seemingly failing to be democratic and preserving our cultural identities. As far as European weak military goes, this is has been fully devised by US policy. I think dunking on economy is fine, but even there when Musk makes snide remarks about how EU should be dismantled in favor of sovereign nations, you know he is full of shit. EU is the best thing that could've happened to a business wanting to export into EU with the exception if you favor Putin-style cronyist regimes where single people can be paid off. I am self-critical of Europe as an European, but most of the criticism I'd take as fair if it came from a country like Japan, not US.
?????? Hasn't usa always asked europe to pay more money into nato and they always don't?
Americans didn't give a shit when it was just european despots imprisoning their own people for memes. But now that they want to fuck with memes on American platforms, Americans are pissed.
Look at AUKUS (where the Americans and the UK undermined French submarine sales), or the recent Palantir contract in the UK (where the US undermined UK AI development). America wants cheaper, more easily defended vassals, not peers. Paying for a standing army (controlled by the Americans, natch) is expensive and doesn't really have any use except when the Russians are actually literally invading, which isn't really a concern for most of Europe at the moment since the rich nations who fund the thing are on the opposite side of the continent. Development is where the money, influence and power projection is, and the Americans guard it jealously.
None of which is to say that the Europeans don't also shoot them/ourselves in the foot by working hard to destroy their own industries and repel investment at all costs.
Is there a term where only one party is ever granted full moral agency, responsibility, and blame, while everyone else is treated as passive, contextual, or structurally determined. In the United States itself it's white men at the end of the agency chain, internationally it's the United States.
Ultimately, the US is a big elephant in a small room. A single change in policy by the US can and has torpedoed entire sectors in foreign countries.
To take an extreme example, if you receive a letter from your landlord telling you that you are going to be evicted then in a sense your choosing to leave peacefully rather than squat or lay makeshift pit traps under the welcome mat is a moral choice. But only in a sense.
And a corollary, there will always be an excuse.
If you are uninterested in actually discussing the phenomenon, you may of course use any term for it that you please.
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