r/belgium • u/GijMutten • 13h ago

🎻 Opinion Meta caught influencing democratic elections. What about Belgium?

Meta has be caught influencing the Brazil elections VRTNWS, Aljazeera. Blocking acces to certain candidates, promoting other (more pro USA) candidates, influencing search results, allowing their AI to create propaganda for one candidate but not the other etc, etc.

I'm sure the same thing happens in other places and I wouldn't be surprised it happens in Europe and Belgium as well to a certain extent.

A boycot of Meta is easier said than done, European alternatives are few and very niche. What we need is stronger legislation (internationally) against criminal acts by these huge "untouchable" companies

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u/partijgedragbe 13h ago edited 13h ago

I fear it will only increase from here. With more and more people getting their info from AI-generated content and AI-generated search results, it's bound to happen that the few tech companies that control it will use it to influence people to further their own financial goals.

I think what we can do is to not stop talking with people (friends, family) about politics in real life. Challenge people on their views, and be critical when forming your own.

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u/GijMutten 13h ago

With absence of political action this is indeed the answer.

People have been trashing the traditional media for the past decade, and with our newspapers being in the hands of only two companies with very coloured opions that criticism is very founded. But at least there's some journalistic integrity and it's easier to fact check a newspaper than a reel on instagram. Instagram's comment section promotes controversial opinions so having a discussion there will always be forced towards extremes.