Rumbling away throughout 2024 was EU threats to take action against Twitter/X for abandoning fact-checking. The EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) is clear on its requirements - so that conflict will escalate. If X won't change, presumably ultimately it will be banned from the EU.
Meta have decided they'd rather keep EU market access. Today they announced the removal of fact-checking, but only for Americans. Europeans can still benefit from the higher standards the Digital Services Act guarantees.
The next 10 years will see the power of mis/disinformation accelerate with AI. Meta itself seems to be embracing this trend by purposefully integrating fake AI profiles into its networks. From now on it looks like the main battle-ground to deal with this is going to be the EU.
Is there some kind of loophole where Canada can join the EU? I mean we're not really that far away if you fly over the North Pole and down again.
Pretty please? Think of the better costs for Poutine and Maple Syrup!
Literally yes. Cyprus is in the EU, while being part of the Middle East. Being a French-English European clone country with a Danish land border and a strong democracy gives us good odds of qualifying as "substantially European".
The real problem there is that we couldn't technically have our own currency, and the US border would probably be a lot harder to cross as it would be the Schengen border. Also, it might make Trump pay a lot more attention in a bad way. Honestly it still seems like a good deal to me, though.
You don't have to use the euro or join the Schengen area to be part of the EU afaik
Those are mandatory for newcomers.
Everything is negotiable in the EU😁