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Comment by fidotron | Hacker News Reader

By the given reasoning every official at the EU wonders why they ever allowed Google, Facebook or Twitter to exist.

This is balkanization.

My representatives represent me, my country, its citizens and its government. They specifically do NOT represent foreign entities.

Given the controversy over this, they clearly do not represent "the people". I think that's a big part of the issue.

Clearly, huh?

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/05/support-f...

The ban only has 32% support from the US public. This isn’t happening because the government is representing its citizens.

how many oppose the ban? hint: it is less than 32%.

what percentage of americans vote for a given president? hint: it is less than 32%.

They have been wondering about that for many years quite explicitly.

Yeah, I think WhatsApp in particular makes Facebook impossible to remove, but I fully expect X to get hit with a banhammer.

The bizarre episode with Elon this week really didn’t help given it appears his whims trump any sense of rules or basic decency.

The US has a lot of leverage on Europe, so I don't think it will happen any time soon.

The US forcing the EU to unban Twitter and Facebook would be the ultimate overreach needed to solidify the plutocracy American society has become.

Officials at the EU should first wonder why there is no European equivalent of Google, or Facebook, or Twitter, or Tiktok (the list could continue forever).

Even if it where, such a company would not find the same obstacles in entering the American market as in would in China.

An EU controlled app would be allowed in the US as none of them are foreign adversaries.

> none of them are foreign adversaries

From the US side it may look like that, but the EU doesn’t see it that way.

But the US is a foreign adversary of the EU who has ruined the EU economy in the last three years and wants to wrestle away Greenland.

Half joking, but the US performs corporate espionage in the EU and certainly takes compromising material on EU politicians whenever it can get it.

The slavish adherence from EU NPC politicians (they are mediocre and no one knows how they manage to rise) to US directives has to have some reasons. Being compromised is one of those.

EU governments also spy in the US. Any government that isn't spying on their enemies and allies both is incompetent.

The reason that the EU "adheres to US directives" is mostly just a legacy of WWII and the Cold War, you don't really have to posit any kind of nefarious espionage scheme to explain why European countries want to stay connected to the US economy and military.

Until we ban Denmark as an "adversary" because they won't just hand over Greenland. Or Mexico for setting tarrifs against us (because we declared tarrifs first).

Lovely precedent we just set here.

Yup I'd be ok with banning TikTok because all of the US web services that are banned China, but this makes it seem like every country should have their own everything

Maybe they'll cite this ruling as part of a reconsideration?

Exactly, Americans want to voice their opinions whenever a foreign country considers banning or regulating an American social media platform. It's a clear double standard. The U.S. government banning foreign companies is fine, but when a foreign country bans an American company, it’s called censorship or something like that?

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