Google is a surveillance capitalist. It is a factory farm that extracts from and exploits people. Why do you want to create a “Google of Europe?” Why do you want Europe to capitulate to Silicon Valley’s digital imperialism and become its taxpayer-paid R&D department? (1/N)https://twitter.com/AchimMuellers/status/1000989525391413248 …
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Aral Balkan Retweeted Aral Balkan
To Californians/Americans chiming in on this to regurgitate the gospel of Silicon Valley: just stop. It’s not that we don’t understand it; we do only too well & strongly disagree. This isn’t about you. It’s about us, in the EU, trying to avoid your imperialism. Stay in your lane.https://twitter.com/aral/status/1000991960839217152 …
Aral Balkan added,
Aral Balkan @aralGoogle is a surveillance capitalist. It is a factory farm that extracts from and exploits people. Why do you want to create a “Google of Europe?” Why do you want Europe to capitulate to Silicon Valley’s digital imperialism and become its taxpayer-paid R&D department? (1/N) https://twitter.com/AchimMuellers/status/1000989525391413248 …Show this thread1 reply 4 retweets 16 likesShow this thread -
The responses to this thread are very elucidating. Almost exclusively (with a couple of lovely exceptions to the latter; you know who you are and I love you): * Folks in Europe: enthusiastic support * Folks in California/US: patronising/sarcastic dismissal/defeatism
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If anywhere we have a chance to veer away from surveillance capitalism to build ethical technological infrastructure that protects personhood and nurtures a healthy commons, it’s going to be in the EU. That’s a very big if and cannot happen without a fundamental shift in policy.
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Replying to @aral
It shouldn’t matter where we are from because we need as many people rowing in the same direction as possible. Geographical filters can be arbitrary. I’m in Northern California (formerly from SF) doing my part. Others are doing the same in the Bay Area & beyond.
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Indeed. And best of luck. What I’m saying is that Europe is not the US. It has a fundamentally different view on privacy and cultural history and thus we *might* have a (tiny) chance to implement a structurally different system *starting* here, but interoperable and free/open. 
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