this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
47 points (94.3% liked)

Europe

1509 readers
348 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in !yurop@lemm.ee. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)

(This list may get expanded when necessary.)

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @federalreverse@feddit.org, @poVoq@slrpnk.net, or @anzo@programming.dev.

founded 4 months ago
MODERATORS
top 12 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] trollercoaster@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

She likes the "tech" industry, not "tech" (whatever "tech" is supposed to mean).

[–] aasatru@kbin.earth 21 points 1 day ago

Yeah. The article seems to almost be written as a propaganda piece, yet all I see is red flags.

"Her mission letter prioritises bolstering European competitiveness. It significantly varies from her predecessor’s bad-mouthing of tech billionaires."

Launching a war against tech billionaires is exactly what the EU should be doing. If one genuinely loves tech, and not just the tools of oppression it can provide, one has no choice but to also hate tech billionaires. They are cancer on the planet, they are cancer on society, and they are cancer on technological developments.

[–] RedPandaRaider@feddit.org 13 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Should sound like good news. But actually sounds alarming. No one who knows tech likes it. IT people won't have smart homes for example.

[–] derpgon@programming.dev 8 points 1 day ago

Oh I do have smart home, but it is a closed system, running a an RPi 4B locally, with Home Assistant and Zigbee2MQTT, and accessible from the internet only via a Wireguard, which bounces through a VPS somewhere in Paris. I am not dependent on any cloud infrastructure, so as long as my RPi is running, I can do this forever as long as the hardware doesn't break - and then I can just swap the devices with the same type as long as it does Zigbee.

[–] varyingExpertise@feddit.org 6 points 1 day ago

IT people won’t have smart homes for example.

That's not true. I have quite a bit of smart home stuff. It's all hosted on premise and walled off towards the internet though.

[–] tee9000@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Can we stop trying to generalize to this degree? It could be good news or bad news depending on the person and not their interest in tech...

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

IT people won't have smart homes for example.

No actually, us IT people built our own Smart Homes instead of shoving Googles and Alexas everywhere.

We like tech, we just don't like the companies behind some of them. Or the users of it lmao

[–] BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The article sounds like a journalist has been commissioned to write a positive article about her even though he thinks the opposite.

"Virkkunen is not afraid of situations where people have different opinions than hers. She does not back away just because the situation is uncomfortable." Virkkunen declined an interview request.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago

Everyone likes tech. Does she understand it?

[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Relevant: here's European Digital Rights (@edri@eupolicy.social) live-commenting on their hearing.

And here are their key takeaways.

Overall, this hearing did NOT deliver the democratic scrutiny we were hoping for - our takeout had more spice 🌶️🌶️🌶

[–] servobobo@feddit.nl 6 points 1 day ago

She doesn't give a crap about tech, her party is 100% owned by the Finnish financial elite who dictate policy based on what makes them the most money.

[–] BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 day ago

That marks a big shift, both in personality and policies, from her predecessor, France’s fiery, intellectual businessman Thierry Breton. He wrote sci-fi novels, waged a high-profile campaign against major US tech companies,

Elon Musk insulted Thierry Breton when he told him that X had to comply with European laws.

The real meaning of "actually like tech" is more "is ready to bend to the will of tech industry"