> the EU to start regulating social media like a utility.
They could just actually enforce the existing GDPR which already makes most of these addiction-based models unsustainable.
They could just actually enforce the existing GDPR which already makes most of these addiction-based models unsustainable.
It would be ill advised without a popular mandate. Remember the conspiracy theories the TikTok ban prompted? You don't want to yank the neo-Nazis' Twitters on a bureaucratic point.
A ban on non-consensual data collection (or rather, the enforcement of existing rules) is not only much easier to define (the laws are already written in fact) but also very straightforward to understand.
Social media is welcome to continue to exist at a loss, but the removal of the financial incentive for greater "engagement" should make it much less toxic.
I worked on the TikTok bill. Nobody reads the details when you threaten to take their toys.
Like, play it out. EU says Twitter, quit it. Elon says fuck off. Now what? You fine him. Great. Elon says fuck off. You start, what, raiding the Ireland office? Seizing bank accounts? If he takes Twitter dark, do you think its users will be differentiating between non-consensual data collection and a ban? We haven't even geopoliticised it yet!
The same suspicions that would animate a ban (or regulation) will animate starting to enforce GDPR now. For this to work, it has to be bottom up. The only way I see that happening is a rally to the flag move by European leaders and a show of force with a targeted new bill.
If you're unwilling to put a ban on the table, the law is toothless and will be flouted. Maybe not forever. But the EU's ability to enforce its will on American companies is already tentative at best.
It shouldn't be the only viable option because we have no other legal mechanism with which to regulate these platforms before they have become enormous and powerful and spiral out of control.
If it needs to be done, it should be done for the right reasons. (Not that a TikTok ban would be bad, or that it's not a sensible move geopolitically, but in the context of the discussion in this thread, a TikTok ban is definitely not on the table because we've agreed that society is harmed by addiction to a centralized social media platform, or whatever. Any side-effects in those areas as a result of the ban would just be collateral.)
I would just prefer a ban never needing to come into play because we don't let things get bad
You need to be ready to ban because you're playing against folks who are willing to play that card. If Brussells doesn't want a ban because it's unsure it would be popular, that constrains their ability to regulate these platforms. Because they know, based on the same logic, that they can cut the cord and blame it on the EU to force back anything they don't like.