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X to be investigated for allegedly breaking EU laws on hate speech and fake news
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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It feels like it's always the EU picking up the ball on these things. Aren't there mechanisms in place to monitor these things in the US, or is it legislation (or lack of it) that prevents the government from going after such things?
In the US, you always have to consider the benefits and risks to an elected official. Republicans would get nothing out of putting their new golden boy under a magnifier, but I'm certain that if a democrat tried it, they'd get slandered to hell and back.
The EU probably has no such concern. I don't know how the EC's members are picked, but partisanship is probably not as huge a factor. Eventually some EC members were bound to grow a backbone.
I'm not up on EU politics all that much, so I hope someone more informed comes along and posts a better answer, but...
My distant view + guess for as to why it's different is that they have more than one party. Partisanship is at its worse when there are only 2 of you, as demonstrated by the US system - it's all finger pointing and "us vs them" that just polarized everything.
In the EU there are (at least?) 7ish "major" political parties, and while some are bigger than others, many actual hold seats and power unlike the US Green and Libertarian "parties" that are essentially meaningless.
As such, any "partisanship" seems at least less extreme. It's a lot harder to crucify one bad guy when your time and attention is split between 6 "bad guys". And different parties back different things, so even if 3 were anti-abortion, you'd have to split your slander and hate to three different groups with different OTHER ideas. So it gets a bit lost in sauce.
And on the other side, if you take a strong stance on one issue (such as this one), there are likely multiple parties on your side for that issue since there are unlikely to be 7 opinions, and even if they are, the similar ones can "tag team" a little bit since they're more in line with each other than the opposing sides are.
If you've ever played video games, games with more than 2 teams play very differently than ones that are just one or the other. Dynamics are much more complicated and constantly evolving than they are in a simple "team a vs team b".
As such, my understanding is that all of these extreme takes are severely diluted since there are more shades of gray and more nuance to the conversation and not just a constant "red vs blue".
Currently 10 parties in the parliament making up seven fractions. For a supernational parliament the influence of nationalities is generally small, but occasionally it bleeds through.
There's actually more things that you can call parties operating on the European levels but many aren't large/successful enough to be granted party status by the parliament. E.g. Pirates generally fraction with Greens/EFA, Volt is split between Greens/EFA and Renew, roughly left-liberal vs. right-liberal, they really don't seem to be able to decide.
The members of the Commission are chosen by the head of each member state, but also have to be approved by the parliament. So it's kinda like a civil servant that gets vetted by elected representatives
It's kind of like the US Senate from before the 17th Amendment.
I wish our America can just start shedding our old identity and start slowly, but surely, copying Europes identity. Maybe things can change for the better.
That would be a nightmare. Whenever there is societal progress, conservatives always push back aggressively.
Not against getting a new king!
Well they said conservatives push back against progress, so I think welcoming their new king checks out.
Yesterday's monarch is today's dictator-for-a-few-days-at-most.
Ain’t that the truth…
we mustnt let that stop us
Also most of the EU members conduct business in their own language so they don't have to worry about Anglosphere media getting a hard-on for them.
I've lost all hope for the US to do anything meaningful on topics such as disinformation. I mean, half of the people there vote for people who believe COVID is a hoax and the Jews are firing space lasers at people.
While I have no doubt that the EU has corrupt politicians, It's no where as visibly bad as it is in the US. Most of the people who could bring this forward get something out of what he is doing or contributing to them, and they would rather turn a blind eye than risk losing whatever he is giving them.
For some it's helping out their base, for others its something more monetary.
There are mechanisms there, but they only work when the people watching them are invested in helping the citizens.
The government is 20 years behind on tech legislation, and they are owned by the corpos.