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Geopolitics

Europe Is Right To Call Up Big Guns Against Big Tech

Europe is moving forward in a united front to force Big Tech that could lead to a historic showdown on the future of how the digital economy functions.

Google stand at the Paris Web salon
Google stand at the Paris Web salon
David Barroux

-OpEd-

PARIS — Facing the rise of Big Tech, which by now has crossed the line far too many times, European states had forgotten the three basic requirements that make any police force effective: political will and backing; the right laws to give it the means to take action; and, finally, it needs to be armed.

But now, the European Commission has finally decided to act by presenting the Digital Market Act and the Digital Service Act — two texts with historic significance.

For the first time, Europe is declaring that Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and the other digital giants of today and tomorrow aren't players like the others. Twenty years after the emergence of the Big Four, big tech companies are no longer children who can be left unattended, but adults who must be supervised. These acts aren't about preventing them from continuing to grow or cutting them into pieces, but rather a way to make sure that they don't abuse their dominant position and accept that they have special responsibilities.

They tried to make us believe that the online and offline worlds aren't the same.

No one can deny it: Big tech companies have achieved unparalleled economic and technological power. They are everywhere in our daily lives and have become essential for consumers, citizens, companies and states — up to the point that they are now platforms which, by making the best use of billions of pieces of personal data, can slow down the emergence of competition, promote their own services or wield viral influence on the democratic debate. They are both systemic and specific players.

For years, these digital players have tried to make us believe that the online and offline worlds aren't the same, that it's impossible to enforce the same rules in a real and physical world as in a virtual and digital world. But this argument is no longer relevant: Just as banks contribute to the fight against dirty money or the media battles against fake news, big tech companies are rich and innovative enough to be subjected to an obligation of both means and result.

No single state in Europe could face such giants, supported by the United States government that retaliates as soon as the question of the Tech Giants' power is challenged. Europe is right to go on the offensive by combining its members' forces. While it is arming itself on the legal level now, it will also have to create a specific police force to take concrete actions to monitor and, potentially, to sanction.

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Geopolitics

Senegal's Democratic Unrest And The Ghosts Of French Colonialism

The violence that erupted following the sentencing of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison left 16 people dead and 500 arrested. This reveals deep fractures in Senegalese democracy that has traces to France's colonial past.

Image of Senegalese ​Protesters celebrating Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Protesters celebrate Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — For a long time, Senegal had the glowing image of one of Africa's rare democracies. The reality was more complicated than that, even in the days of the poet-president Léopold Sedar Senghor, who also had his dark side.

But for years, the country has been moving down what Senegalese intellectual Felwine Sarr describes as the "gentle slope of... the weakening and corrosion of the gains of Senegalese democracy."

This has been demonstrated once again over the last few days, with a wave of violence that has left 16 people dead, 500 arrested, the internet censored, and a tense situation with troubling consequences. The trigger? The sentencing last Thursday of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison, which could exclude him from the 2024 presidential elections.

Young people took to the streets when the verdict was announced, accusing the justice system of having become a political tool. Ousmane Sonko had been accused of rape but was convicted of "corruption of youth," a change that rendered the decision incomprehensible.

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