But this is often fine if there’s real harm there. Eliminating the harm often outweighs the risk of centralized abuse of power.
But when the harms you’re supposedly protecting against aren’t actually real (the social media hysteria is a classic moral panic), you’re simply creating legal levers for control over all media that is just waiting to be abused by bureaucrats and government employees, most of whom are non-elected. Even the elected Commission has already proven they will happily force through unpopular legislation in bad faith.
People’s naive inability to understand the mechanics of this is astounding to me. You do not grant powers to government that aren’t absolutely necessary because they all power is abused and government power is implicitly enforced via a gun to your head.
Society works on balance of power. The government is part of that balance. Ideally the government serves the interests of people, that's the democracy part. In practice that's far from perfect, but it's still not some absolute evil constantly repressing us.
Both government and private entities have checks on their power in the form of voting (government) or in the case of commercial entities, the market itself (voting with your dollar). Both entities can and do abuse their power.
However, only one group is always granted a monopoly and legally allowed to force you to comply and buy their products at gunpoint (government).
Markets don’t come into existence ex nihilo. They come into existence by regulation setting the rules to ensure that the system works for humans.
You have nothing without regulation and government power, setting up the rules and enforcing them.
Further, when we look at the merits of the case which is driving this entire conversation, Meta acted in a manner that most people would consider evil.
And the market is rewarding them for it.
Arguing that they should receive no support or positive reactions because they also deserve blame is how the center and left break down their own power: Believing that disengagement from one another is a stronger moral obligation than working together and fixing shit with people who are willing to listen and work.
EU Commission = US Senate, EU Parliament = US Congress. Kinda.
The people who wanted the law were the heads of every EU state, so they could pass it with or without the EU - that's probably why it's set up like that - same reason the UN is quite powerless.
Big Tech is some foreign rich dudes being dictators of their little fiefdom doing whatever they can to make themselves even richer. We have zero control over them and what they do to our society in this pursuit. No elections. No recalls. No public votes.
The only correct reaction is for the sovereign to assert its sovereignty and lay out some ground rules.
If social media was just your family, friends and acquaintances sharing stuff like it used to be you may have a point. But with the algorithm feed its turned into a der sturmer like propaganda pipeline.
They're playing the long game. First with the carrot, then with the stick, but the end goal is state tyranny, and control over tech platforms is one of the means.
They saw what China managed to achieve with their internet censorship and ID control, and they want exactly that, but with a blue coat of paint sprinkled with yellow stars, and pushing child safety up front is a easy way for the public to be onboard with this capture.