Dear Editor,
it’s quite funny that the right wing takes lessons on sovereigntism from a liberal moderate like Carlo Calenda, isn’t it?
These days, before the attacks the Action leader directed at Ferrari Luce went viral, I noticed that on social media the harsh j’accuse the former manager addressed to another multinational on everyone’s lips: Meta.
“How Europe will be will not be decided by you American oligarchs,” the clear stop that the politician ordered to the man acting as Mark Zuckerberg’s stand-in at Meta (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) on this side of the world: Angelo Mazzetti, Public Policy Director of Meta.
Mazzetti, after all, repeatedly says in interviews and public appearances how old Europe is hostile to Big Tech from across the ocean. I’ll read you some excerpts from this report found online (Source: EgiNews) of a meeting promoted by Adnkronos and Meta at the American Studies Center: “The regulatory hypertrophy of the EU in the last 10-15 years has often led European consumers not to have access to the latest technologies,” said Mazzetti, who then explained the goodness of their action, almost philanthropic: “Together with EssilorLuxottica we produce smart glasses that have integrated artificial intelligence and give the possibility to those who suffer from disabilities, the blind and visually impaired, to listen to what they cannot see and to interact with AI directly by voice in their daily activities. At this moment, however, these devices are threatened in their design by a regulation that was approved years ago and will come into force next year.”
All this somewhat overshadowing the serious privacy issues to be regulated related precisely to smart glasses that Start Magazine has well covered recently, of course.
For Meta’s Public Policy Director, the big companies that want to sell their products here would be much better off without Brussels’ regulatory shackles: “Competitors in the United States or China, without this kind of limitation, have the possibility to develop their products and therefore compete more aggressively with an ecosystem that is instead developing in Europe and that sees Europe in a leadership position.”
But, still according to the report I found online, not only does this curb the philanthropic scope of Big Tech producing devices for those with disabilities, but also, in Mazzetti’s narrative, it takes away the possibility for Zuckerberg, Musk & Co to defend our rights: “Moreover,” says the Meta man, “limiting the expansion possibility of these products also limits the ability these products have to defend citizens’ rights.”
Angelo Mazzetti is basically talking about the Facebook founder, whom we have come to know mainly from journalistic reports saying he is capable of massively firing thousands of employees with an email, as a defender of our rights. Curious.
And indeed, intrigued by the meeting held at the American Studies Center (where else?), I wanted to research on the Adnkronos website that organized that roundtable. There I found more abundant quotes from Mazzetti: “There has been talk for some time about the positive impact AI will have on our society and economies. The EU has fallen behind technologically but has all the cards to catch up.” How? “We must – here we go again… – simplify the excess of rules produced in the last 10-15 years that have scared companies and reduced investments, as well as increased compliance costs.”
In short, for Meta, European regulations are now a fixed obsession. They feel tight, they restrain it, they don’t allow it to innovate, to restore sight to the blind, and to protect our rights. The intention to accelerate moral suasion ahead of next year’s regulation coming into force seems evident.
This is Meta’s position on Europe.
Let’s then return to Calenda’s stance on Meta, which curiously made more noise on Zuckerberg-owned social media than in the printed press (which has long battled with Zuck over fair compensation), where it was mostly picked up by local outlets since the battleground between the Action leader and the Big Tech USA representative was an event held in Brescia.
At that event, Calenda, besides calling Big Tech “Trump’s bootlickers, who went from absurdly Woke policies to executing what the new president said,” called Mazzetti “the Italian representative of an oligarchic company, who pays less tax than a worker, who manipulates algorithms to stir people against each other, who wants to be unaccountable, who doesn’t want rules,” then concluded: Do you like the freedom of the USA and China? Go live there, both aim to dismantle Europe.”
So far, editor, nothing new.
Calenda, struggling at his 3.5% risking political irrelevance (as the latest Swg polls published by TgLa7 say), daily lashes out at someone (yesterday Meta, today Ferrari, tomorrow who knows…) to get attention. This is undeniable and I’m certainly not making any big revelation.
It is also undeniable that his 3.5 percent in a period of political uncertainty pushing the majority to tweak the electoral law could be useful both to the center-right (which also has to deal with the Vannacci unknown) and to the center-left, becoming a possible swing vote.
Here I connect to the latest municipal elections: in Reggio Calabria, Francesco Cannizzaro, deputy group leader in the Chamber for Forza Italia and party coordinator in Calabria, won, supported not only by the usual Forza Italia, Brothers of Italy, League, Noi Moderati, but also by Action. The same scenario in Venice, where Calenda contributed to the victory of former UDC Simone Venturini.
If that’s anything to go by, having failed the broad field hypothesis with the PD, which in any case cannot afford to drop Conte’s 5Stars whom Calenda hates, Action could become the prop of a center-right so far very right-wing and little centrist.
However, I wonder what they think over there about the European rules opposed by US Big Tech. Especially after yesterday the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, speaking at Confindustria, called the EU a “bureaucratic giant,” asking it to do “less but better.” Which seems the same position as the Meta man in Italy.
And to think that, in purely principled terms, digital and regulatory sovereignty – not to mention any protectionist laws – should be dear to the right, as Trump teaches since all his laws fall into that category…
Apparently not, since, as I said, Calenda’s heavy-handed intervention on Meta was ignored by everyone except Nicola Porro – a signature always appreciated and followed by the center-right – who on his blog picked it up to bash the Action leader. “Calenda’s outburst against Big Tech: scratch scratch and communism comes out,” the title of the piece on the journalist’s site, a free fighter but still affiliated with the center-right area.
The article reads: “Maybe he doesn’t realize it, but he’s using a typical socialist argument, based solely on social envy. For the record, the most equitable country, according to the latest Gini Index measured, is Maduro’s Venezuela. Do we want to take that as a benchmark? Only a Marxist or someone acting as one is convinced that one person’s wealth is at the expense of others’ well-being. A person who cares about freedom doesn’t mind the difference but the individual’s wealth. It doesn’t matter if there is a person, in my country, who is much better off than me, what really matters is that I no longer starve. The advantage of globalization and a market economy is precisely to lift more and more people out of poverty, not to equalize rich and poor (downward, perhaps, as happens in all statist systems).”
And, again: “The Big Tech giants all started from zero: Bill Gates in his garage, Steve Jobs was a kind of wandering hippy, Jeff Bezos with his small bookstore, Elon Musk with a video game made when he was a student and small businesses of the first web economy, the gigantic Netflix was born as a mail-order movie rental store, Mark Zuckerberg was a student when he launched the first Facebook. Can the EU boast equally rapid stories of rise to success? No. And please don’t call them ‘oligarchs.’ The USA is not Putin’s Russia, none of these innovators needed state protection to become global giants. We’re not just talking about individuals, we’re talking about innovation in a broad sense. Who invented modern industry in the Second Industrial Revolution? Ford, in the USA. What was the first IT giant? IBM, in the USA. Who invented the Internet? Arpanet, in the USA. Where did the Internet, from experimental/military, become commercial and accessible to all? In the USA. Who is creating Artificial Intelligence? Various companies and research centers in the USA. Who dominates the space race? NASA and private companies (SpaceX, Blue Origin…) all in the USA.”
Almost a plea that makes the article a defense not only of Meta but also of all the other big tech companies now firmly at Trump’s court. Hence the final climax: “Unfortunately, the arguments used by Calenda are not only those of a party leader of one of the least voted formations in Italy, but are common currency throughout the Old Continent. There is a ragged Europeanism, just as there was ragged chauvinism before the Union. A way to console oneself with ‘we are poor but happier.’ And it’s not just that: Calenda’s words are yet another demonstration of European (Italian, in particular) hostility to individual freedom. It feels like hearing the same criticisms made to Charlie Kirk, with the corpse still warm, when he was reproached for defending the right to bear arms and defending freedom of individual expression. Basically: ‘he wanted freedom, he deserved to be killed.’ Well, the arguments are of the same tenor, like the comments you read under Calenda’s fight video. With liberals like these, who needs socialists and populists?”
A remarkable short circuit where regulatory and digital sovereigntism are read as the avant-garde of a Marxism declined on technology and statism desire.
Editor, if this is also the center-right’s position (and Meta not coincidentally has organized with one of the most right-wing newspapers, Il Tempo, a conference on these topics with a title that is a program in itself: “The necessary retreat of European regulation”), I wonder how Action thinks of building a political program together.
Between two quarrelers, does the third (Meta) enjoy?
Whoever lives will see, or social media will have the tough verdict.
Carlo Terzano
