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This was my draft prior to AI review. It sucks getting this kind of flack from mods and posters but do realize that the post is probably 85% my thinking with minor edits. I think you might realize the assessment is a bit harsh:
Review this post for the Motte given widespread EU/US dynamic on twitter in last 2 days:
Europeans are effortposting on X and it centers around a 150 million dollar fine apparently for how they changed the blue checkmark and not allowing api access for researchers. But it comes at a time when Europeans are bearing down on Musk for not curating feeds based on the opinions of paid misinformation deciders, a position invented in 2016.
I think it’s a real bad look for Europe to be falling behind China and the US economically and also acting as major regulators of companies they can’t build themselves. Their posture has become so unfriendly to business that Apple just doesn’t release some features for Europeans anymore. Jamie Dixon just sounded the alarm on their economic policies dragging down their ability to innovate.
My impressions online of European bureaucrats in the last 24 hours have been of a hulking regulatory body with a bunch of snooty has-beens. This European economic, Robin Brooks, has been noting too that their actions don’t match the rhetoric on things like Ukraine, buying endless amounts of Russian oil etc.
The free speech thing is really annoying too. I was surprised to see Trump hold back on this when meeting PM Starmer in Scotland when asked about it. There is a real difference in free speech that means as an American I can feel comfortable expressing myself without fear that some busybody will come knock on my door.
It’s upsetting because while things may have been much less turbulent under Harris, I’m truly glad that the attempts to codify a global regime of acceptable online speech over last X years has met resistance. It’s odd to think that there would have been a unification of efforts on this front under her.
Europe is and always will be our friend but they’re not on their game right now and the snooty reactions are distasteful.
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