Independence ≠ Pandering
Dear friends!
On this Europe Day, I am writing to you with joy in my heart about this day. 75 years after the Schuman Declaration and 80 years after the end of the war, we in Europe can be proud of what we have achieved.
But this day is also a mission. Because the powers that relativise the lessons of the world wars and once again rely on war as a means of territorial expansion, whether through attacks in Ukraine, Moldova or Georgia or vague threats against Canada, Panama and Greenland, are growing stronger. In doing so, they deliberately use disinformation, hatred and incitement to destabilise democratic societies. The platforms and companies that control them, from TikTok to X to Meta, have since embarked on this course.
Independence, but done right
On paper, Europe’s response to this is independence. But when it comes down to specifics, another word comes to mind: pandering.
Let me give you an example that I also had the opportunity to talk about last Wednesday before the European Parliament:
We now know very well that the Chinese platform TikTok sends the data of its users, often children and young people, to China to create profiles. The Irish Data Protection Authority has finally imposed a fine of 530 million euros for this serious breach of data protection, but still a drop in the ocean given its global profits of 23 billion. And it does not even solve the main problem. On TikTok, people are profiled in seconds and deliberately radicalised by being shown increasingly radical content. It is not the users who decide this, but TikTok. In this way, a Chinese platform determines what people see.
Behind this is a business model used by all major platforms: the more radical and dishonest the content, the longer users stay on the platforms and the more money the platforms earn from advertising. Serious information, on the other hand, doesn’t stand a chance and is deliberately down-prioritised. This makes it easy for the Chinese dictatorship to spy on European user data and manipulate public opinion, as we are currently seeing in Romania.
The Commission is sitting on the TikTok report and refusing to act
Yet Europe has the means it needs to put an end to this business model and give users back control over what they see, including with the Digital Services Act. Decide for yourself. That is freedom of expression. An investigation into how TikTok manipulates public opinion has already been completed. But the responsible EU Commission Vice-President Virkunnen refuses to publish it. That would be the first step towards forcing TikTok to change its business model.
But instead of publishing the report and facing questions from elected representatives (which she refused to do on Wednesday), Virkkunen prefers to meet with the TikTok CEO, who is planning a data centre in her home country of Finland, at the same time as our debate.
Independence would mean consistently applying one’s own laws.
Pandering is when you prefer to have coffee with the CEO of a company that is dependent on the Chinese regime.
The EU Commission is accountable to the citizens of the European Union. Not to the Chinese government or tech giants. On this Europe Day, the Commission should remember this, release the TikTok report and finally launch a systematic investigation into all platforms, which will then enable what truly makes us independent:
an end to manipulative business models and the return of freedom of expression to citizens.
That is what I am fighting for today on Europe Day. And every other day.
With European greetings,
Yours, Alexandra Geese