Of course it’s better when we do it to ourselves than when an outsider does it. It’s rational for a country to prevent its main adversary from collecting massive amounts of data on its people and to prevent its adversary from getting people addicted to an app that has negative social consequences. After banning TikTok people will naturally start to wonder about regulating Facebook and other social media and this would be a good thing.
Europe's main adversary and existential threat ain't no China, its russia. Has been, is and probably always will be. Next, at least historically, with a huge gap from first, would be Turkey. We are not top dog and thus don't compete with China in any way apart from usual economical stuff.
I bet this move is more to please US to show we are still aligned, otherwise we would be banning all meta products and couple more left and right.
Russia is a minor player compared to China, a distraction that was welcomed by China with open arms as it helps divide and weaken the West. I understand that Russia has a much bigger impact on Europe than on the US, but strategically speaking, China is the only one actually capable of influencing the world to embrace despotism and collectivism at the expense of freedom.
Minor player from US perspective maybe since both are geographically far from you, but russia keeps consistently threatening to nuke all European cities (last time they told we need to expect 250 million casualties), they wage war that top russian leadership repeatedly stated ends when they reach Atlantic ocean. This won't and shouldn't be ignored.
Now we all know at this point what relationship russia has generally with truth, but for imminent threat (next few decades), we worry at murderers on our doorstep and stating openly they want to enslave and kill us, rather than something remote that may be a problem in few decades, maybe. Imminent military/existential threat > economical competition, always. China ain't exporting despotism, I am not aware of a single country falling into this category. russia on the other hand, almost 100 years of consistent achievements in that space.
This also comes from past and quite recent experience - eastern part of Europe was enslaved by soviets/russia for 4 decades. I've grown up in one such place, its destroyed for generations, and its not something I'll ever forgive them. China? Nothing.
You just can't compare these threats. Sure we are aligned with US as much as we can, but US acts in its own priorities, which sometimes are directly against our own. US spies on us, wages trade wars with us. US has Trump. And US is currently giving a gigantic FU with blocking help to Ukraine, we all know and see daily consequences, and we all know Europe's security from Russia ain't top US priority now. So lets be a bit honest here.
> Russia is a minor player compared to China, a distraction that was welcomed by China with open arms as it helps divide and weaken the West.
How does that follow? The war united the west, not divide it.
> China is the only one actually capable of influencing the world to embrace despotism and collectivism at the expense of freedom.
You mean china is the one forcing collectivism ( EU ) on europe? What is 'the west' other than collectivism?
So many stupid people watching stupid youtube videos and regurgitating nonsense. You probably have a brain. Try using it sometimes.
The most despotic entities in the world isn't china, it's the US and the EU. The most collectivist entities it the world isn't china, it's 'the west'.
Is china forcing everyone to be like them? Are they exporting communism everywhere? No. Guess who is trying to force everyone to be like them? The west.
EU and Russian economies are not liked in significant ways anymore. Russia was the number one natural gas supplier but has kicked itself off that position with the invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile the EU exports massive amounts of goods and intellectual property into China. China is also controlling the vast majority of rare earth supply. If China were to cut ties with the EU, the EU economy would tank massively.
China is also known to supply Russia with chips for their weapon systems, which means they work together in defense matters and if Russia is a threat, then China is, too.
I agree that more regulatory effort is needed against Meta and YouTube, but at least there we have actual entities in our sphere of influence that our democratic systems can hold accountable.
Anything China however, we are reliant on the goodwill of a dictatorship. And that cannot stand longer, especially as China is not giving us reciprocal access - Youtube and Facebook for example are banned there, so it is only fair to do the same against anything Chinese.
China is an adversary to Europe. You may not see it as the main one but it is one. Don’t have to always target the main adversary.
European security is dependent on American guarantees and as such it is in Europe’s interest to not deviate too far from America’s foreign policy goals. Especially when there is a major war going on in Europe caused by its main rival.
Even so Europe has targeted America’s most powerful corporations for regulation. This is a good thing. Maybe America will someday follow Europe’s example.
It may be now, but not because of China, but because of the disastrous policies of the EU commission that cannibalized its own industrial base.
> European security is dependent on American guarantees
It is now, because De Gaulle and Adenauer were under massive attack by the Atlanticists when they tried to establish a sovereign European security infrastructure. The CIA, the BND and the Spiegel actually were instrumental to that.
The crazy thing is that America would be far more powerful if it empowered its allies rather than cannibalizing them.
It doesn’t matter why Europe is dependent on American guarantees when we are discussing the state of the world as it is now. Perhaps the information you’ve provided would be helpful in developing a long term goal of non-dependence on the U.S. military.
Russians lost 1 in 7 men to defeat nazis i.e. to save Europe from Europe.
From a historical point of view, it is the other way around. Germans, French and the English always had a hard on for the slavs. They desperately wanted those resource rich, strategically located lands. They still do.
It does not matter what happened historically. We are talking about what is happening now. The Baltics, Poland, Romania, etc. see Russia as a threat and not their NATO allies.
But the nations I mentioned see Russia as a threat and not their NATO allies. This is what we are discussing. What does it matter that some people hold grudges for a long time when that isn’t pertinent to the discussion at hand?
Right now, Poland, the Baltics and Romania fear Russian agression and are very much opposed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This is the present reality and that at some point in the past other nations were more feared than Russia is of no consequence on the present reality.
Russia is a personalist dictatorship. It's actions are at the whims of it's dictator. It does not matter what actually happened historically to understand the present reality. What does matter is how one person views history and how that influences his decisions. But this only matters as it pertains to predicting his reactions/actions.
For instance if Putin beleives that the U.S. is the cause of all that is wrong in Europe then it doesn't matter if he is right/wrong. What matters is that he believes this and acts on this belief. Knowing his view of history is important but it in no way has any bearing on wether or not nations fear Russia at this moment in time.
Germany initiated two world wars and was responsible for the deaths of millions, including systematic extermination of 6 million jewish civilians. Yet, they are somehow the good guys now leading the EU. If Russia is bad because its parent USSR was an oppressive regime, what of Germany?
Russia is not considered bad right now because in the past it was bad. It’s considered bad right now because of invading neighboring countries and that it is also Europe’s last true colonial empire. Germany was bad. Now not so much.
United States invaded Iraq (under false pretext of WMDs) and Libya and currently illegally occupies parts of Syria. Doesn't that make it a colonial empire?
Russia could argue that it has legitimate national security interests with Ukraine becoming a member of NATO.
I find the recent reflexive hatred of Russia puzzling. They are no worse than their accuser.
Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Chechnya, etc. are examples of Russian aggression. The U.S. is an empire and is neo-colonial. It has done outrageously bad things. Supporting Ukraine is not one of them. Russia is led by an evil man. There are other evil people in the world.
Could you please elaborate on Moldova? I am russian, and I am sincerely curious, what does it look like from your point of view. What exactly were russian actions that you classify as an aggression?
Tansnistra (spelling?). Read up on it. Russia is Europe's last traditional colonial power. It's dictator seeks, to the extent possible, to recreate the Russian sphere of influence enjoyed during Soviet times.
Actually USSR president didn't recognized Transnistria as an independent state. Even more he "declared the Transnistria proclamation to be devoid of a legal basis and annulled it by presidential decree on 22 December 1990" as Wikipedia says. And still today Russia didn't do that also. So what were the acts of the aggression made by Russians against Moldova? You wrote Moldova first in the row like something obvious and I'm really interested in the basis of this statement.
Germany has changed the way it treats its neighbors and has become a trustworthy and reliable partner who seeks to solve disagreements through peaceful means. You don't see military parades under Swastikas, people voting Hitler their biggest hero, or German leaders threatening the rest of Europe that "the masters will be back" and discussing on TV how many million people in Poland should be exterminated - all of which is happening in Russia.
They have been integral part of the NATO military alliance that bombed Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, lending military bases and participating in missions. Hardly solving through "peaceful means". It is just that they are on the "right side".
The bombing campaign of former Yugoslavia lasted for 10 weeks and stopped a series of civil wars that had gone on for 10 years and claimed at least 130 000 lives. The whole campaign killed a few hundred people, less than were executed in a few days in some of the worst massacres there, and brought peace that has lasted for 25 years and counting. So indeed they were on the right side.
> The Uprising started when the Red Army appeared on the city's doorstep, and the Poles in Warsaw were counting on Soviet front capturing or forwarding beyond the city in a matter of days. This basic scenario of an uprising against the Germans, launched a few days before the arrival of Allied forces, played out successfully in a number of European capitals, such as Paris and Prague. However, despite easy capture of area south-east of Warsaw barely 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) from the city centre and holding these positions for about 40 days, the Soviets did not extend any effective aid to the resistance within Warsaw.
In 1939 there were 111 million people in today's Russian territory, in 1946 - only 97. So literally, yes, every 7th Russian was killed fighting nazis.
By the end of 1939, there was no such state - Poland. There was the Polish nation, but there was no Polish state that exercises its power within its borders. There were Soviet Union and Germany and border between them. And after the end of WWII, Poland was restored. Not just restored, but got about 20% of its current territory from Germany. Only Red army from all the Allies was present and won the battles on this territory. Would you restore a neighbour state and gift it yesterday's German territory filled with the blood of only your soldiers if you just want to conquer it?
To complete the picture Poland was also pretty happy with aiding the Nazis, together invading Czechoslovakia two years before that. Until the Nazis turned against them.
Soviets, not russians. The Soviet forces consisted of people from fifteen present day countries, only one of which was russia. More non-russians were lost than russians
Considering how many millions of people the Soviet Union murdered in its own nation (before and after WWII), and the nation's of other non-Soviet European nations being invaded anexed.."to save Europe from Europe" would be a statement that many, many Europeans may not agree with.
And yet, Germany leads the Europe now. I believe there is no need to recount the horrors they were responsible for, in their own country and other European countries. I don't think what USSR did to their own people is far worse than what Germany did to 6 million jewish people, enough to treat Germany better than the Russians, who in fact suffered at the hands of the Bolsheviks.
> After banning TikTok people will naturally start to wonder about regulating Facebook and other social media and this would be a good thing.
It's not 'people' demanding anything. It's the elites. Why would the elites want to ban facebook or any social media they control. Not to mention facebook, reddit, youtube, etc are much older than tiktok.
If Tiktok gets banned perhaps people (non elites) will start wondering about regulating other social media. It’s a desire on my part that this occurs. I’m not stating that it will occur or has occurred.
What L? I clarified my meaning because someone interpreted what I wrote in a way that I did not intend. I think it is common to clarify when appropriate.
except that you're essentially endorsing a dangerous form of nationalism and rationalizing domestic surveillance by suggesting it's acceptable for our own government and companies to manipulate and monitor us but not for foreign entities, to say nothing about how naive it is to think domestic companies will later come around to regulating themselves. this is exactly the double standard that not only undermines the principles of fairness and privacy but also paves the way for greater acceptance of intrusive surveillance under the guise of security.....
You should reread what I wrote. In particular, how does my last sentence,
After banning TikTok people will naturally start to wonder about regulating Facebook and other social media and this would be a good thing.
give the impression that I for the things you claim I’m for? You did not understand what was written.
It is human nature to find that some actions done by your own society are more acceptable than when done by another society. The CIA drugging Americans is a lot more palatable to Americans than if Chinese spy agencies did that. Neither is good but one garners much less outrage than the other. This was my point. And by regulation obviously I was referring to government regulation.
I’m pretty sure the EU has established time and time again that creating toxic and addictive experiences isn’t OK when Facebook do it, either.
There is plenty to criticise in the hysterical response we’ve seen particularly in US government to the mere existence of TikTok. But IMO the EU has been pretty consistent about this stuff, grouping everyone together as “the West” isn’t that helpful.
I will admit I don't follow the regulations that the EU applies but most of social media has become worse for me as an EU citizen where the recommendation algorithm has become more aggressive and now with lots of little rewards like the "achievements" on Twitch to make you feel like you accomplished something just for consuming. I feel like I'm the mice in a Skinner Box, so whatever "regulation" they have in place doesn't seem to be working.
Sort buy fine and the top companies are meta, amazon, google, whatsapp .. but yes also TikTok. But no, it's not fine if other EU countries are doing this.
> brainwashing people, propaganda
I don't remember the details, but did meta and youtube not have to implement tools to combat "anti vacs fakenews" during the rona times? Or was that not forced they did it on their own?
I don't know man, It seems you are wrong. It's not all fine when "we do it"
I mean if you properly label loot boxes as gambling and dont let kids do it then it seems reasonable. Thats how casinos and sportsbetting operate and no problem there
It's interesting since China is restrictive on everything, but they're allowed to play ball in other people's fields. They need to be banned from the WTO and the West in general until they change their tactics.
Western economies depend on outsourcing to China and taking full advantage of their corruption and lack of labor rights and regulations. Talk about "tactics" and rules is simply hypocrisy when the West has no problem using autocratic regimes to undermine their own principles for the sake of their own self interest.
Well the play was obvious in the US TikTok case wasn't it? They weren't REALLY about banning it, they just want to force sale of a massively profitable apps to western owners (selected ones, obviously).
No, not obviously. If you have any evidence that the government was trying to influence which non-Chinese firm would end up owning TikTok or collecting TikTok's profits, lay it out for us. I always thought that the government was leaving that choice up to the current owners of TikTok.
Well for a while Trump just wanted to ban it because people used it to register for his rallies and then not show up to give him a comically small turnout.
Later it became more nuanced and economical. But the EU does have a point and they're not just targeting Chinese apps.
Did people forget all about the leaked Instagram research papers? I don't really use either, but at least TikTok's parental controls are vastly superior to Facebooks.
> Why can we not just call a spade a shovel - its not really about this app it is about "China"
That's probably justified, but TikTok IS far more addictive than the competing western developed apps, particularly with children and the young. The EU would also be pushing them if it was developed elsewhere.
If it gives Bytedance the incentive to produce app that are less harmful to our mental health, i'll switch to it overnight. Good bye to all the metacrap.
Nah, the EU is being very aggressive with the DMA and DSA. See the whole Apple thing, Facebook delaying the launch of Threads in Europe to make DSA-friendly changes (mostly the ability to browse without a login wall) etc. All this for rules that have only been in force for a few months.
I think the EC has learned its lesson from the GDPR; “you might one day be fined, maybe in five years” (Facebook, say, was recently fined a billion of so for behaviour going back years) is not a sufficient deterrent.
That's an extremely heavy burden that we've never forced on consumer products before.
Requiring every company to prove why something us suitable for their market also means the government has absolute control over what is and isn't acceptable for any citizen to have access to. That's some seriously distopian shit in my opinion.
I feel like we’re approaching a level where absolutely any government regulation is seen as “dystopian”.
We absolutely have regulations like this already. I’d almost argue there are more consumer products subject to regulation than not.
For a more specific example, teens are not allowed to use gambling apps. I don’t see many people arguing that is tyrannical government overreach. Here, TikTok is creating an addictive app that offers you monetary rewards for watching videos and completing menial tasks. It sounds more like employment than leisure activity, why shouldn’t we interrogate the suitability of something like that? Why give these social media companies, which have proven themselves untrustworthy time and time again, the benefit of the doubt?
Gambling was already regulated though, extending that to digital gambling isn't a stretch. There aren't regulations that I'm aware of that fit for specifically what the EU is doing here.
We can always add more regulations, though there's an official process to it. There is a line though, and while I absolutely see value in some regulations given how complex we've made society, a government with full authority to deem what is and is not appropriate for any specific group of people is extremely heavy handed.
I don't actually want to give social media companies the benefit of the doubt. People shouldn't use that trash and parents should be helping their kids decide if those apps are actually something they want to use. If people really see the value in that kind if app, though, we only avoid the problem rather than fix it by banning apps or limiting access from the top down.
Yeah that's an old debate for sure. Its effectively an offshoot of the question of whether governments have power by default unless limited by the people, or if power is granted at the lowest level unless specifically given to the higher authorities.
In this case, it seems like having regulations is a horse and pony show if the government can enforce regulations that don't yet exist. In the most kind view, writing regulations is helpful so we at least know what they already plan to enforce. In a pessimistic view, writing regulations is only done to help the public think that everything is above board and that power isn't, and won't, be abused.
> That's an extremely heavy burden that we've never forced on consumer products before.
That's a heavy burden that we enforce on many other consumer products. That's why we have certification processes in place, quality testing and compliance testing. From airplanes, to cars, to bikes, to helmets, to food, to medication, to toys, to appliances, to paints and chemicals, etc.
We don't have similar requirements for software unless its related to regulated industries like healthcare. Its all well and good if the idea here is that people would like more regulation, but that regulation doesn't exist today and the EU move here seems like overreach.
If I'm not mistaken the DSA is focused on content moderation and how content algorithms work. This article describes EU concerns having to do with whether or not the app is addictive, I'm not really sure if that falls under how the algorithm works so much as how users respond to it.
That said, this app and so many other social media apps are trash. People should be choosing not to use them regardless of regulations.
A tweet really doesn't say if the DSA applies here though, politicians attempt to misuse laws and regulations all the time.
My reading of the DSA is that is is primarily about disclosure of how content algorithms work, not the impact on users. I could very well be wrong there, but a tweet claiming they want to use the DSA as enforcement there doesn't really clarify anything unfortunately.
> That's an extremely heavy burden that we've never forced on consumer products before.
Isn't it what the CE marking means on physical products though? It means the manufacturer claims the product is conform to regulation, which presumably includes "not harmful to the intended users".
While CE marking can be a self-declaration depending on the type of product (some products require third-party control) at any moment each EU state can check it, and in any case a control process has to be documented.
The parent comment just wishes to apply the same to non-physical products, which doesn't strike me as extremely heavy or unreasonable.
Sure, CE regulations could always be expanded but that doesn't exist today so it really isn't relevant for why the EU would be forcing one specific company to justify their new app.
Is that limitation specifically defined in the law? I.e. does the law granting power to require this spell out how segments are defined and that only the largest by a specified metric can be regulated this way?
Short of that its just a current norm for how the law is enforced. Nothing stops the next regulator from expanding that power.
My understanding of the DSA is that its focused on content moderation and disclosure of how content algorithms work. Whether the content is addictive really isn't directly related, that's a measure of how users respond to the content rather than how its fed to them.
That said, this app, like so many other social media apps, is trash. People should be choosing not to use it regardless of regulations.
1. Providers of online platforms accessible to minors shall put in place appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure a high level of privacy, safety, and security of minors, on their service.
Is it? That's entirely unprecedented. Teens are one of the biggest demographics for games. Are game developers now requires to be adolescent behavioralists?
"EXPLAIN THIS FUN GAME!"
"Well we wanted to make a fun game, so we made it fun."
"explain this non-fun, stress-inducing addiction generator"
"well, we wanted to make a lot of money with incredibly low effort, so we just found out how to best psychologically manipulate users into being unable to leave and stress them into giving us money while they're there in various ways."
"wait why was this not already illegal"
The difference to a game is that a game is first and foremost designed to be entertaining and the user starts playing and stick around with it because they like the entertainment. An addiction to a non-malicious game could be considered like an addiction to good food. Not great, but you're addicted to what you like. Some games (and foods) are more addictive than others, and some games are particularly malicious and are occasionally struck down against or hung out for their methods, but it's overall seen as okay.
These apps are not meant to be entertaining. They use stress, FOMO or outright manipulation to make you return. This addiction is more like being addicted to cigarettes. One can argue whether even self-harm should be up to the individual, but no sane individual would argue that cigarettes are good or that tobacco companies are anything other than evil. If the cigarette was invented now, would we have allowed them to proliferate?
Drawing the line is hard, and I don't like others making decisions for me, but I also don't like society forcing you to join an abusive platform as you'd otherwise miss out on whatever basic societal functions people put there, so enforcing that platforms play nice seems fair.
In what way is assessing the age suitability of a game unprecedented? Games have had movie-like age guidelines for decades now.
And besides:
> The app is called TikTok Lite and offers the chance to "to complete challenging tasks and earn great rewards!"
> Tasks include watching vids, liking content, or following other users. Rewards include Amazon vouchers, PayPal gift cards, or TikTok's in-app currency that can be used to tip other members.
Well that makes sense, the problem is less visible when you generalize everything down to “an app” or “a game” or “a paper stick you put in your mouth”.
If the game is deliberately made to be addictive, leads to emotional distress and is overall harmful then curbs should be put in place. Game developers should not be adolescent behavioralists; the regulators should be.
The EU asking questions is dystopian? Hysteria like in the 80s and 90s? Or is it good to ask some proper questions before some huge enterprise unfolds their social credit system?
This really is starting to sound like all the hysteria from the 80s, 90s about Doom, baggy pants, gangster rap music, punk rock music, satanism in the woods, I could go on and on.
Data collection is bad, and I wish I could raise kids without the need for smartphones, but it does feel a bit overkill now all this hysteria.
It’s not just hysteria because previous hysterias were from a position of ignorance, whereas with TikTok, etc. everyone has experienced the negative effects of social media, and secondly no teens ever said that their listening to rock music was a problem for them, but when surveyed most teens agree social media is bad for them.
As a parent today, I often wonder if my concerns are the same as every parent of prior generations and that things will turn out just fine.
But I can’t shake the thought that the impact of social media and addictive games for some kids can’t be written off as just a phase they are going through. I worry so much that they will carry the negative impacts into adulthood.
I think that rewarding kids to watch garbage they don’t like (or do like: it doesn’t actually matter) is a bridge too far. I cannot think of anything from the 80s-90s in my youth that would compare in any way. I mean; for adults this is pretty horrible as well, but they can decide themselves, but for kids it should be forbidden imho.
This has nothing to do with being exposed to the same content as their peers (which is indeed often needed to grow up). Give them pocket money and/or chores and not this bollocks.
It's also worth considering whether the concerns of previous generations were really as exaggerated as we think. We might believe that things "turned out just fine" simply because this is the world we're used to. However, it's possible that we're actually heading in the wrong direction, and many of those worries were - in fact - valid.
The effect is real, every generation will feel an effect that is slightly new and relevant to their time.
But if it's going to lead to the complete downfall of society and lethargic adults who cannot deal with life, I doubt it.
I'm playing devil's advocate here because I truly believe that kids should not have smartphones at all. But that's because I was raised without them.
And also I've seen in practice a great example of a relative who raised his first child (male) with no screens, and his second child (female) allowing screen time. The son is now 15 and the girl 9 and the difference is shocking. Most well behaved, calm, focused young man I've ever seen. Compared to a little animal who snarls at you for taking away her phone at dinner time.
It's the false dichotomy that makes for histeria. TikTok is either on or off. the alternative, handing control of the algorithm over to the Department of Education, has never been discussed.
You could use the same reasoning about anything that is called “addictive and toxic”. Sometimes something really is addictive and toxic and should have curbs on it. Instead of talking about what it sounds like we should discuss what it actually is. Is this app more like 80s satanism and is really much ado about nothing or is it more like social heroin?
Well, watching content you like (it seems young people do on TikTok) is one thing, giving rewards to watch whatever content really is another. It’s grooming a new generation for the race-to-the-bottom gig economy.
No, it resembles the campaign against drinking and smoking and having sex without condoms: sometimes a bit overbearing but everyone knows the message itself is sound. Tiktok and similar apps or 'services' - Youtube shorts, Instagram reels, etc - do to video what Twitter did to online discourse and the world would be a better place without them. Maybe not for the 'influencers' who are on it but who cares, they are part of the problem both by feeding the machine as well as by serving as bad role models. Go ahead and ask some children what they want to be later and be dismayed by how many of them say they want to be 'influencers'.
That said I'd prefer for parents to keep their children off Tiktok and the like or - better still - keep them smartphone-free until they're at an age where this is no longer feasible or legally possible (~16). If they do have phones make sure you have control over which apps they run and for how long they can use these, on Android that can be accomplished using something like Timelimit [1]. This is what I use (server and clients), to good effect.
I could not disagree more. To me this is a type of "slippery slope fallacy fallacy", a fallacy, where you call every "slippery slope" type of argument a fallacy.
Just because we have been mistaken in the past doesn't mean that every instance of "hysteria" is irrational. There is a wealth of research demonstrating the bad and detrimental effects of social media.
Given the abundance of real data proving social and educational regressions caused by the overuse of these kinds of apps (by design), I think this panic is more deserving of worry than the others you've listed here (which were all moral panics, I.e. "$THING doesn't align with my belief system!).
> This really is starting to sound like all the hysteria from the 80s, 90s about Doom, baggy pants, gangster rap music, punk rock music, satanism in the woods, I could go on and on.
With the exception that none of these is proven to fry the teenager mind.
Maybe that is what we need. Maybe we are in need of a moral panic to address the massive concerns of mental health, surveillance, misinformation and others that built up over the years with the rise of social media, smartphones and the centralisation of the internet.
The reviews on the app are wild - people talking about loving getting paid a couple bucks for watching it all day, and that it's their new side gig. It's pretty sad, to be honest. Get outside and live life! (Or stay inside and live life, but we need to get away from this dopamine high of doom scrolling)
If the mobile app makes 7.5 billion revenue or has 45m monthly active users, then the company should definitely do their risk assessment. That's the exception though and doesn't affect many mobile phone apps.
Why are you assuming that regulation that applies to a billion dollar company would apply to everyone? Isn't it way more useful to just regulate the large players?
Small players can't make a lot of damage, and the cost of regulation in an entire market (millions of apps) is huge compared to regulating maybe a dozen apps with a half billion users.
When people say that they usually mean that the EU does not treat these issues as they think they rather should. Which is a matter of policy rather than comprehension naturally: all the things above are rather pedestrian concepts.
They aren't pedestrian and that's how you get ignorant people in charge of things they don't understand. Just because you saw a video of minecraft or played mario bros 30 years ago does not mean you now understand video games let alone know how to regulate it. Even if someone talked to some experts in the industry and received some data, that does not mean they now understand that field enough to make a valuable contribution.
The EU is not a dictatorship so decisions aren't made by one (incompetent or brilliant) person. And frankly gaming is not quite quantum field theory: if you can call yourself an expert at it so can thousands people working in the government really.
Telling me it is not quantum field theory lets me know that you know nothing about either thing. Making decisions that affect entire industries that consist of many types of people is incredibly complex. I guess we will live with incompetent midwits making decisions for a little while more.
I think apps like TikTok are designed and built like gambling apps to manipulate behavior - particularly young people - into staying engaged with the platform. That type of psychological manipulation should be regulated when children are involved, or at the very least transparent about it. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, all of them should be closely examined.
You aren't entitled to what other people produce. If you don't like working you can live in the woods and not work a single day of your life again, but bear the consequences. No one owes you anything.
That's my point. Just ban tiktok because it's Chinese government spyware already. All this think about the children stuff is just beating around the bush.
Alcohol is definitely bad for kids and possibly It's also not great for adults, but let me tell you that you can consume alcohol without becoming an alcoholic.
Many people can have a conscious consumption and enjoy it without having major short term or long term bad consequences.
I said many, not everyone.
If an App would be developed in Europe or in the US, it would have no chance against CCP in China, and possibly get copied and offered in China by a Chinese player.
The West stance against China is laughable, we can't play democratic games against an autocracy, when we do, it happens what happened with Ukraine, it gets invaded.
The west needs to cut itself off from Chinese manufacturing before it can do anything meaningful, and that's no easy task.
Much of the world has spent the last 80 years chasing globalization as the solution to avoiding nuclear war. I'm actually surprised it lasted this long, but that strategy was never going to be sustainable and we're seeing cracks really start to erode these days.
To be clear though, China isn't going to invade the US. Invading your neighbor is hard enough, invading another super power on the other side of an ocean is impossible.
I'd really would rather not see the government or ISPs wielding the power of censoring us or companies through backdoor tricks like throttling network access.
Toxic and Addictive, collecting data, brainwashing people, propaganda etc is all fine when we do it.
Go for it and ban it - but there is no need to treat everyone like an idiot with the stupid excuses.