French President Emmanuel Macron today launched a new EU effort to counter the global influence and irresistible menace of Facebook with an alternative platform based on European values.
Macron said the new social media site, called le Livre du Visage, would revolutionise the digital landscape by making it safer for Europeans to share their personal experiences and data – as well as to track down profiles of people they dated at university.
He added it would provide a huge boost to the French economy and would not be anything like the other European attempts to conjure up an EU version of Silicon Valley.
“Europe needs strategic autonomy,” Macron said, “especially when it comes to social media. I tell this to young people all the time but they are too busy making TikTok recipes.”
Instead of spreading incendiary misinformation inside ever-enclosing echo chambers while at the same time harvesting and profiting from users’ private information, le Livre du Visage will encourage ever closer unions between users, with algorithms that promote EU-approved initiatives that otherwise would escape public notice – for example, all of them.
Le Livre de Visage will be available in all EU languages that are French.
