Macron wants to dismantle Facebook with his small arms
Emmanuel Macron gave an interview to our colleagues from Point while the second round of the presidential election will take place in just over a week. The outgoing president answered many questions, some of which related to digital. After having tried to seduce the electorate on the left, the campaigning politician flexes his muscles to remind everyone that he’s the boss. In particular, it attacks social networks.
He first points the too great ease of information sharing that reigns thereleaving room for some to spread fake news, personal attacks and rumours.
One can [y] killing reputations, spreading fake news, driving people to suicide. […] When we read what Mark Zuckerberg thinks for example, or even Elon Musk, who became a shareholder of Twitter and who is a libertarian, we realize that they also have a vision of the world. But the society that emerges in this way is not always democratic.
The candidate also criticizes the relative anonymity of those who allow themselves anything and everything thinking that nothing can happen to them.
In a democratic society, there should be no anonymity. You can’t walk in the street wearing a hood. On the Internet, people allow themselves, because they are hooded behind a nickname, to say the worst abjections.
A demagogic posture since anonymity does not really exist on the internet. If we want to find someone at fault, we can, even if they use a VPN, a tool that has a reputation as a digital invisibility cloak. A thorough investigation will always end up revealing the identity of the person in question. he is also out of step with Cédric O, his current Secretary of State for Digital, who himself advocates the opposite principle. But the “Macron-show” is not over since it continues with the monopoly situation of certain companies.
Emmanuel Macron plans to “dismantle” WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram https://t.co/Q7CUJv8ZvY
— 20 Minutes (@20Minutes) April 14, 2022
Meta balaclava!
The president indeed raises the omnipresence of bulimic companies which buy at all costs and find themselves holding a little everything, like Meta which has Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp under its wing. To defend himself, Emmanuel Macron has a magic solution.
First, there is the subject of social networks. Many are now Americans. We must not hesitate to envisage the dismantling of those who are in a situation of monopoly and to regulate. […] Democratic societies cannot accept that platforms are in a monopoly situation, I am in favor of European competition regulators rearming up against this risk.
He thus joins the American authorities themselves who accuse Mark Zuckerberg’s group of abuse of a dominant position and who want Meta to sell precisely a few companies it owns. But before wanting to “dismantle” a private foreign company, maybe we could start by making him pay taxes, Nope ? We can clearly see that with such speeches, Emmanuel Macron is only blowing the wind: punch lines to make headlines and pats on the back to Bill Gates or Zuck in 6 months (if re-elected).
But the “prez” is also a little jealous. It is indeed quite unhappy that no French company, or even European, is competitive on this market. He thus wishes ensure our sovereignty in the areas of platforms, mobile applications, metaverses, cybersecurity cloud to counter the American and Chinese behemoths. He is all the same aware that the thing will take at least 10 years. The bugger is preparing for his election in 2032. Smart.
