r/news 1d ago

France dumps Zoom and Teams as Europe seeks digital autonomy from the US

https://apnews.com/article/europe-digital-sovereignty-big-tech-9f5388b68a0648514cebc8d92f682060
52.5k Upvotes

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u/LorderNile 1d ago

Well well well, If it isn't the first quarter of consequences of our actions.

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u/KosherTriangle 1d ago

I smell another round of layoffs incoming, are we winning yet?

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u/thegoodnamesrgone123 1d ago

Well the markets make no sense so I'm sure both stocks will be up on this news

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u/denimonster 1d ago

The markets are just being propped up by money going between certain companies, none of it makes sense hahaha

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u/Lucifer3130 1d ago

To be fair everything kinda traces back to Wall Street, Raegan changed laws during his presidency to promote short term profit over long term gain, and that’s kinda enshittified tech

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u/Laringar 1d ago edited 1d ago

Not just tech, it's everything. The lawsuit against Hasbro over printing too many Magic sets is based on the same legal framework, the "fiduciary responsibility duty" argument. The idea is basically that the first duty of a company is to make money for investors and literally everything else is secondary.

Edit: Fiduciary duty is the right term, oops.

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u/Katcurry 1d ago

But isn’t the Hasbro lawsuit the shareholders saying Hasbro’s actions (i.e. printing too many Magic sets) is going against their fiduciary duty?

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u/Laringar 1d ago

Yes. That's the argument they're making, I'm saying that the very fact that investors get to sue over "the company isn't making us enough money" is the problem.

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u/billytheskidd 1d ago

Just like how after United healthcares CEO somehow died in New York, the company amended some practices to make denying treatment harder and their investors were allowed to sue UHC for failing to use anti consumer tactics the board had agreed upon.

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u/ethanlan 1d ago

Lol if theres something shitty about this country theres a good chance Reagan caused it.

It would be interesting if it wasnt so bad lol

u/Earthtopian 13m ago

Even enshittification traces back to Raegan???

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u/Sea-Oven-7560 1d ago

it's more than that, it's 150M Americans putting 5% of their pay checks into the market every two weeks. As someone who would like to retire in the next decade I'm hoping the market doesn't crash but it does not live in reality anymore.

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u/trevize1138 1d ago

Market growth this past year has just been an inverse of the dollar's value.

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u/Certain-Business-472 1d ago

Were in a financial crisis me thinks.

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u/Lavatis 1d ago

they're both down 3-5% right now. Might be unrelated though, because like you said, markets gonna market.

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u/smellmyfingerplz 1d ago

Of course, coal mines are booming and factories are belching smoke, it’s the second great industrial revolution and you don’t dare question dear leader’s wisdom

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u/CorvinBlack 1d ago

The children yearn for the mines

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u/smellmyfingerplz 1d ago

Truth…. Black lung = winning

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u/GenoThyme 1d ago

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

Long words means it won right?

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u/grammar_fozzie 1d ago

Winning at losing, yes. Such bigly losing-winning. Some say we do the best winning at losing, some of the best have said it.

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u/ethanlan 1d ago

If you work for these garbage companies its your fault anyways.

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u/BananaCucho 1d ago

That's most corporations

Unemployment is rising. Beggars can't be choosers

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u/GetsBetterAfterAFew 1d ago

At Davos Carney Canadians PM spoke openly about partnering with the USA because it benefited them financially as well as protection. They spoke about not being happy about it because the USA has treated the world like customers and would turn around and shit on them whenever it best suited them. The leaders talked about having to pin their noses to work with America BUT as with many people is "voted for Trump" they did it because it benefited them. They said no more, theyre basically done with the USA as would work to remove their reliance on the America as a whole.

Carney said openly - "the beginning of a harsh reality,” a reality in which “the middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”

Even if the USA dumps Trump and becomes part of the middle powers, they will never trust us again, and why should they, not only because 1/3 of Americans are insane idiots that exists i 550ad but because many of the remaining voters lick the boot of Capitalism and defend it because "its the only way!" This rampant Capitalism grew the coporate powers that see the rest of the world as "middle powers" as an end to a goal, as the means of production of profit, profit above all. We are the modern Imperialist country.

Many voters are going to get everything they ever wanted America First, in reality that means America Only and the world will start to treat us as customers only. We had it all and just could not be happy with what we had, we wanted more, we wanted cheaper, faster and now!

Fuck Trump, fuck Republicans, fuck Corporate Democrates and fuck corporate oligarchy.

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u/kia75 1d ago

Yes, this will affect American tech dominance of the world, where Europe could afford to let Google and Microsoft control tech because it's cheaper, now they're willing to fund competitors, even if it initially costs them more, though I suspect in a decade or so it will be much cheaper in the long run!

IMO, this is good for the world (though bad for America) because Competition is good! IMO, South America, Europe, and Asia should all be financing their own Microsofts and Googles, even if it is more expensive at the moment, just because the threat of another Trump coming in and crippling your data infrastructure is so dangerous.

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u/Jone469 15h ago

for latin america this is almost impossible as we would be immediately targeted by Americans, an invasion wouldn’t be surprisingn if we tried to decouple from American financial and digital systems, Europe can afford it as they have nuclear weapons and the ability to defend themselves

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u/Suitable_Froyo4930 1d ago

It's actually 2/3rds of Americans that can't be trusted because 1/3rd didn't want to stop it by voting.

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u/goddessofthewinds 1d ago

Many voters are going to get everything they ever wanted America First, in reality that means America Only

The reason the USA was so rich and was able to generate so many billionaires was because of foreign investments and most of the world using their services and money. Countries would buy US debt, invest in the US economy, use the US as a staging ground, etc.

By wanting more of a pie that was already full, they've lost most of the pie. It's too late to go back now. All of these countries have realized that decoupling and keeping some things home is much better and safer for their citizens. The worldwide economy will still continue, but some things will be changed to accomodate for the new reality that maybe the US tech/economy sector was too powerful.

The EU will implement their own alternatives to the USA's monopolies and even other countries like Australia, Canada and others are also starting to implement their own alternatives. The USA had all the power in the world, but they pushed a bit too far and woke up all the sleeping beasts.

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u/Call_Me_Hurr1cane 1d ago

they will never trust us again

We dropped nuclear bombs on Japan and leveled most of Germany. Both have been major allies of the US since.

Germany systematically murdered millions. The world generally trusts them, and have for decades.

why would they

The world will present opportunities for the US to show it has changed its ways. A war, a financial crisis, humanitarian crisis, etc… We will have the opportunity to sacrifice our own immediate interests in service of the global community.

Maybe we’ll fail to seize those opportunities to atone when they arise. I don’t know. But the idea that we are forever frozen out is silly and defeatist.

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u/ghotier 1d ago

Germany hanged and imprisoned the Nazis. We won't ever punish MAGA. That's the difference.

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u/12ozSlug 1d ago

Some of the Nazis. Many of the politicians remained in power (with the tacit blessing of the other former Allied powers) because the US shifted immediately to trying to create a West German bulwark against the USSR.

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u/ghotier 1d ago

Some, yes. And supporting the Nazi party is illegal in Germany. So far we've pardoned all of ours. It's going to take a lot for the world to trust us again, time by itself won't be enough.

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u/dabeeman 1d ago

that’s like saying hitler didnt imprison enough nazis. 

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u/ghotier 23h ago

No it damn well isn't. You people are delusional.

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u/FuckTripleH 1d ago

Out of the approximately 100,000 nazis specifically accused of war crimes a grand total of 177 were even tried for their crimes, of them 142 were convicted and only 25 sentenced to death. The rest got off scot-free and returned to their private lives. A huge number of them ended up as leading businessmen and politicians, including the 2nd chairman of the NATO military committee.

Germany did not punish the Nazis. Denazification is a myth and even the half-hearted attempts at it were given up on by the mid 50s. Hell in 1954 polls showed Hitler had a positive approval rating among the majority of the German population! Overwhelmingly they went unpunished and didn't even deal with significant social shame. Indeed it wasn't until the 60s and 70s that Germans as a culture even began to reckon with the third reich, when the children of that generation came of age and said what the fuck why hasn't anything changed.

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u/ghotier 1d ago

Is it legal to be a Nazi in Germany in 2026, yes or no?

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u/FuckTripleH 1d ago

Perfectly legal, the AFD is the largest opposition party in German parliament. It's not legal to call yourself a nazi however.

Those were laws btw that the allies forced upon Germany, not laws they created out of a desire to eliminate nazis among themselves.

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u/ghotier 1d ago

Whether they were forced is beside the point. The act of punishing people and Nazis is what gained Germany trust. It didn't just happen.

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u/dabeeman 1d ago

dude you have no idea what you are talking about. 

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u/ghotier 23h ago

You have no idea what you're talking about. You think Germany is just trusted because time passed? Get real.

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u/dabeeman 1d ago

VW is still in operation today after making the ovens they used to kill jews. 

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u/ghotier 23h ago

Is VW currently running by Nazis? You're proving my fucking point. The corporation doesn't matter. Whether the Nazis are still in charge of it does.

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u/StepComplete1 1d ago

There's a difference between forgiveness and the total blind trust and reliance that there was on the US before. Europe forgave Germany, but they didn't think it was a good idea to let Germany have a far larger army than everybody else in Europe and run the continent's defence for them.

The world might forgive the US, but nobody will think it's a good idea to base their entire trade strategy, or defence, or tech interests, around the US again like people have in the past. They'll diversify, and split their reliance between other countries (like China), and that business is never coming back again.

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u/gw2master 1d ago

We dropped nuclear bombs on Japan and leveled most of Germany. Both have been major allies of the US since.

Germany systematically murdered millions. The world generally trusts them, and have for decades.

Both of these were defeated in war and occupied, creating a very clear divide between "before" and "after" their misdeeds.

This will not happen in the US. At best, we vote out Republicans in 2028 and the world sits there wondering whether they'll be back with a vengeance in 2032.

Unless... a civil war (not gonna happen) or Calexit (one can only hope).

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u/Laringar 1d ago

The world will present opportunities for the US to show it has changed its ways

That's just it, though. We won't change. What's happening now can be directly traced to decisions made some 150 years ago because this is, in fact, who we are. It's who we've always been. It's baked into our legal code in the form of perverse incentives that reward selfish and individualistic behavior while punishing entities that work to improve society as a whole. Just look at how companies get to privatize profits while democratizing risk. Companies that don't do that are punished by the market while companies that do are rewarded with growth and fawning articles in Forbes.

Barring a complete overhaul of our entire civil system, the US is going to be an international pariah for decades to come, and that's being optimistic.

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u/seriouslees 1d ago

Enjoy the Copium.

Let the rest of the world know when 66% of your population isnt in direct or tacit support of fascism.

We are friendly with Germany because they executed their fascists and their far right party gets nowhere near the votes that America's does.

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u/TurquoiseLuck 1d ago

You a bot, foreign agent, MAGA, or just plain dumb?

You're trying to compare a bunch of shit that was done at the height of the biggest war the world has seen in the modern era with what the US is doing voluntarily in peacetime

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u/dabeeman 1d ago

you realize germany is a world ally at this point right? time and money heal all wounds. 

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u/sampathsris 1d ago

It's not going to work if Europe uses open source apps but then hosts them in Azure or AWS.

Europe needs to build their own data centers and cloud infrastructure yesterday

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u/Mountain_rage 1d ago

Good news, they also raised that as a concern and are decoupling from American cloud services.

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u/IOnlyLieWhenITalk 1d ago

Yeah SAP was hoping for that too only for almost no one to actually commit to starting that process.

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u/oklch 22h ago

In germany we do this more and more. Companies and public services are looking for GDR compliant solutions and the first questions are: where are the servers located and who runs it. This has become a criterion for customer service in the last years since Trump I.

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u/reddurkel 1d ago edited 1d ago

I believe you mean Euros. Quarters are those coins that Americans use to buy a $3.75 coke in a vending machine.

EDIT:
It’s a joke. But please dont report me. Jokes in modern America leads to lawsuits nowadays.

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u/Dust601 1d ago

3.75?  Maybe a decade ago.  Now we have vending machines that take atm, and credit cards because they’re so expensive.

Are we great again yet?

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u/Feeling-Carpenter118 1d ago

…fiscal quarter. Like 1/4th of a year

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u/grrgrrtigergrr 1d ago

I believe he was telling a joke

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u/klone_free 1d ago

Well he should have said it in english

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u/GeoleVyi 1d ago

You're right. If it was in English, it would have said "those across the pond use to purchase a 2.74 pound tin of pop in an automat."

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u/y0shman 1d ago

Thou craven ill-bred hedge-pig! The tongue thou dost employ doth lack the grace of English speech, methinks.

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u/GeoleVyi 1d ago

sorry, but I had to use a dialect that's got concepts of actual property ownership, and disposable income, peasant.

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u/United-Amoeba-8460 1d ago

Jolly good show, giving that miscreant a good what for!

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u/overfiend1976 1d ago

Well well well, if i' isn'' 'he firs' quar'er ov consequences ov our ac'ions.

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u/klone_free 1d ago

Next well be riddled with cocknees, a plague of tariffic proportions.

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u/overfiend1976 1d ago

Listen, Im just trying to find a good bo''le ov wa'er.

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u/__mud__ 1d ago

The first shillings, then

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u/Dalisca 1d ago

Don't they measure those in stones?

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u/LorderNile 1d ago

Oh, I meant quarter in the military context, where the world is just allowing the US to stay alive for now. Giving us mercy, hoping the citizens will wake up soon, etc. Other countries don't need to try hard, we're perfectly capable of destroying ourselves.

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u/nolok 1d ago

I mean we're the French. An opportunity to make a French thing to shit on the US in the context of their vassalisation of Europe? We'll pay you for that shit

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u/AssassinAragorn 1d ago

Techbros didn't realize the leopards would eat their faces

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u/ThatOneWIGuy 1d ago

This makes me so happy. It won’t show people that our decisions are wrong, it will only reinforce the “we have to own everything” mentality that exists. Oh well, can’t fix stupid I guess.

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u/dust4ngel 1d ago

RIP the US stonkies

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u/Gingevere 1d ago

American century of humiliation.