
Macron Wants to Rein in Silicon Valley, from Brussels - awiesenhofer
https://www.politico.eu/article/macron-mounir-mahjoubi-tech-regulation-eu-vestager-wants-to-rein-in-silicon-valley-from-brussels/
======
peteretep
This article is a bizarre set of weird talking points, trying to tie together
a conspiratorial narrative through such breathless facts as:

> To lock down his influence in Brussels, Macron needs to make sure he has
> sufficient clout to weigh on commissioners’ nominations, an objective he can
> only achieve via a broad voting bloc in European Parliament. His centrist La
> République en Marche (LRM) party is at work forging alliances with like-
> minded groups in other EU countries, notably in Spain with the Ciudadanos
> party.

Yes. He's going to "lock down his influence" by ... finding like minded
partners?

> To press his influence with other governments, Macron relies on Finance
> Minister Bruno Le Maire to conduct high-level diplomacy.

European Finance Ministers in "they talk to each other!" shocker

> Mahjoubi, who was hoisted to his current role after running the president-
> to-be’s digital campaign, has been more active lobbying the European
> Commission, frequently making the hour-and-twenty-minute train trip to
> Brussels to meet with top EU officials and stress French views on everything
> from the bloc’s artificial intelligence strategy to investment for startups.

The fuck is this crap? This article is really odd.

~~~
cjohansson
This was my feeling as well, the article tries really hard to incite some
weird aggression based on a blurry case

------
realusername
> France, which is the only EU country to have a law against fake news on its
> statute books

Nope, the law has not been voted yet and has been rejected by the Senate.

~~~
baud147258
I didn't know that. But the other house, the National Assembly, can have the
last word and bypass the decision of the Senate (I think, I'm not a
specialist)

~~~
realusername
Kind of, the Assembly has the last word (for the modifications) but they can't
bypass the decision of the Senate.

------
agorabinary
One of the major concerns of EU skeptics has always been the ability (and the
gall) to push ambitious acts of centralized control by like-minded European
leaders. And more likely that big players like Google/FB will just buy off
protections from mega-regulators than actually be "reigned in" as it always
happens

~~~
tobylane
That doesn't match up with history. Two of the more notable fines by the EU
have been on Microsoft and Google. The UK recently fined Facebook the maximum
that agency could - 500k [1]. The politicians are on record speaking out
against data abusers in ways that sound like they are users. Nearly all of
what the EU does centralised is still policed locally. There's barely any of
the control that skeptics say there is, even if you include the control the
countries willingly handed over.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44785151](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44785151)

------
secfirstmd
Highly likely Ireland is going to be against this but its going to be a lot
harder to restrain many of the French governments more outlandish proposals
when the Brits leave.

~~~
reacweb
In France, we have the CNIL that has very few powers, but always gives very
insightful advices and that is inspiring CNILs in other countries. We also
have some politicians who are very well informed but are actively fighting
against our freedom (like Kosciusko-Morizet who wanted madatory backdoors or
Bernard Cazeneuve with his decrypt law). The problem is that the difference
between a well balanced law and an insane nightmare is often a question of
details.

------
MrBuddyCasino
Disappointed that Macron is following the old french playbook here. Was under
the impression that he was a more of a liberal guy.

Unfortunately german conservatives are useless when it comes to internet
regulation (see "Mitstörerhaftung", making platforms and operators of wifi
access points liable if their users commit crimes), not sure how much
resistance can be expected.

~~~
delecti
> Mitstörerhaftung

Without knowing anything about what that is, I'm having a lot of trouble
looking up anything about what that is. Most of the links about that seem to
be in German, and the ones in English are talking about it too tangentially to
get any meaning from context clues.

~~~
zaarn
Mitstörerhaftung ("co-disturber liability") in German law means that if you
enable someone being a disturbance then you might get slapped too.

In relation to Wifi, this so far meant that if someone torrented a movie or
uploaded music without license over your wifi, you'll get a free court visit
too and possibly a fine. That made operating an open and free wifi hotspot a
legally fairly risky problem (lots of free wifi here still has very aggressive
content filtering). The law responsible was discontinued in october last year.

This has been recently confirmed by the BGH (some high court in germany, the
case was from before the law was ended but the changed law was taken into
consideration), though you're not entirely off; the court can rule that you
need to install a site filter and prevent torrenting or even put up a password
on your wifi if there is too much disturbance caused by activity on your
hotspot.

------
mkirklions
And this is how FAANG ends up destroying democracy in Europe like our
lobbyists destroyed our democracy in the US.

These words are dangerous to the life of these companies. I can easily see
(trillion dollar) companies starting various forms of political donations in
EVERY country.

Google cannot afford to lose its euro market, but google can afford to buy
policies.

EDIT: Whats the criticism? For the first time in human history, money wont be
able to buy politics?

~~~
markus92
Too bad campaign contributions are heavily regulated in Europe. It's a bit
harder to buy politicians here.

~~~
agorabinary
You can't regulate corruption, by definition

~~~
genericid
Making it illegal still reduces it.

------
afsina
I think this is all about money really. EU lost the tech war so they try to
make winners life so hard so that they could either squeeze more money from
them or enforce some government supported - controlled inferior products to
replace them. These may be the excuse key words: "protecting civil rights,
hate speech, terrorism, privacy"

~~~
simion314
Similar with rules to traffic, the rules are there for the cops to make some
pocket money not not for our safety /s

I think is easy to see that you need to always had some new rules when someone
finds a way to do harm to the society, I am sorry that the rules makes some
billionaires have a few less billions.

~~~
growlist
I think it's naïve to believe these decisions are completely free of political
considerations, and that the Commissioners responsible are merely the purest
of heart rule implementers - on the contrary, I'd suggest that those at the
upper echelons of EU decision making are by definition extremely sophisticated
political operators; if not, how could they end up in a position of such
power?

~~~
simion314
I do not understand how some people want free/fair market and at the same time
you accept unfair practices like monopoly abuses or special deals or tricks to
avoid taxes that only big companies can do, where is the fairness in the big
players having advantage over smaller ones?

~~~
growlist
That's not what I said. I'm saying it's naïve to think there is no political
aspect to a decision to impose a fine of e.g. billions of euro. It's possible
to both make this observation and to support the fine itself.

~~~
simion314
So, what is your point ? Is it correct to punish bad actors but not if it
could have a possible political aspect to it?

I mean party leaders/ministers are put in jail when they do illegal
things(though all of them complain it is a political attack), the point should
be the facts, who was harmed and how to punish and prevent it to happen again
if possible.

~~~
growlist
Why does there have to be a point beyond what I've already made? Your post I
responded to satirised the idea that there is anything but a legal component
to the decision, then went on to assert that the decision was purely legal. If
I have that wrong please correct me. Otherwise, I stick to my point - to
portray the decision making behind these fines as purely legal is similarly
one-dimensional as portraying them as being purely driven by European envy of
the US.

Apart from that I am quite happy to be free of supposed tech giants'
'innovation' when that involves them selling my personal information to
whoever they choose and so support the EU from that aspect, but at the same
time I have a sneaking suspicion that the rules would be less zealously
applied if the tech giants were European. VAG seem to have got off pretty
easily for the emissions scandal. Do you seriously believe that if a European
company is threatened with EU fines that that country's leaders will not be on
the phone to Brussels, and that these calls will not have an impact, moreso
than a similar call from outside the EU?

~~~
simion314
I mean what politicians are behind this? Do you think that some party has to
gain by this? Or is just anti american and big European companies enjoy
preferential treatment?

