European Commissioner Thierry Breton announced having opened an investigation into TikTok: The Chinese app allegedly violated some rules by harming its younger users. In particular, the platform would be designed to make us stay online for as long as possible, beyond any limit of exposure to a screen; its algorithms would aim to make us fall into the so-called rabbit hole, that is, push us to always see other similar videos; finally it would have failed to develop an effective age verification system. We’ll see how the investigation goeswhich seems inevitable given that new rules for digital platforms have just come into force in the European Union.
And yet the impression is that Breton has chosen an easy targetthe Chinese app, saving for now the big American companies they hold Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat and that they could be investigated for the same reasons that TikTok is investigated. It is no coincidence that a few days ago the city of New York decided to take all social media to court for the damage they are causing to teenagers. Just pick on TikTok and therefore with ugly and bad China it means wanting to win easily.
A bit like Bono who the other evening during a concert in Las Vegas at a certain point told the audience that if they believed in freedom they had to shout Alexey Navalny’s name. And the crowd shouted it several times, and it was all very exciting. But even there, it was an easy victory. How can you not side with Putin’s courageous dissident, someone who wrote phrases like “if they kill me, don’t give up”? Navalny is a romantic hero, irresistible like Hector who defends Troy knowing that he will die. We are all for Navalny against the bad Russian who “split him in two”.
The more difficult it is call for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip; cry for the 30 thousand civilian victims of the Israeli attack; demand that at least Rafah is not razed to the ground like all the other cities. That is difficult, because they tell you that you are with the butchers of Hamas, while forgetting the thousands of Jews who demonstrate every day for a free Palestine. Here: saying those things on stage would be revolutionary and rock, the rest is beautiful, very, but comfortable. A bit like picking on TikTok.