In keeping with Donald Trump’s personality and style of politics, the man has made no secret of his animosity towards the European Union and the European political establishment. Having called it “worse than China”, threatened tariffs of 50%, lobbed more than a few personal insults towards incumbent European leaders, and openly supported the growing continent-wide far right wave that European officials are worried about, the second Trump administration has established itself as an enemy of the current European political establishment, and a lover of the forces seeking to overturn it.
Responding in kind, European policymakers have scrambled to escape the continent’s multifaceted reliance on the United States, seeking to plug the many key vulnerabilities the bloc has in terms of industrial, military, and political capabilities. In this monumental endeavour, however, they have failed to consider one area in which the US dominates both European social life, and even the most basic aspect of its democratic decision making: the regulation of the bloc’s news, and social dialogue via its globally unmatched social media industry.
While often downplayed in the past, nowadays the algorithm’s ability to influence the vote is undeniable, and very much common knowledge. The 2016 Trump campaign’s partnership with Cambridge Analytica is considered instrumental in propelling him to the top job, Tik Tok’s hold over GenZ played a remarkable role in shaping its differing views on the Israel Palestine conflict, and most recently Romania’s election bonanza was perhaps the most raw display of social media’s silent and terrifying ability to upend the ballot. Perhaps the most monstrous form of this reality is the infamous Chinese great firewall, in which the Chinese state has fully encased its citizens in a controlled environment where all news and free communication is monitored and media virality moves on the whims of the state. In very few cases, has a topic been punished by its target demographic for being algorithmically favoured.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gestures during a rally on the inauguration day of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second Presidential term, inside Capital One, in Washington, U.S. January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Mike Segar
The Trump administration for its part, has proven to have absolutely no qualms with publicly influencing European democracy. With JD Vance and Elon Musk openly voicing their support for the far right AfD during the leadup to Germany’s election, and Donald Trump himself expressing sympathies for Romania’s Georgescu, it’s clear that should push-come-to-shove, the American government would have very little issue with pressuring a now politically subdued Silicon Valley to use it’s algorithmic dominance to influence future European elections. The implications of this on Europe of course could range from sprouting more “problem children” in the Union (such as Romania’s Georgescu, Slovakia’s Fico, or even Hungary’s Orban), to major destabilisations of Berlin, Paris, and London, all at the same time, and all from offices in California.
Terrifying as that prospect may be, surely there exists some sort of solution, and perhaps one does. While lawmakers have been slow to react to this vulnerability, many have taken to Elon Musk’s own app, X, to openly call for its outright ban from the European Union as a result of his perceived subversive acts against European democracy. It wouldn’t exactly be a big step to extend such a ban on all American, or even non-European platforms, especially with the Commission eyeing up a potential hit on Silicon Valley should tariff negotiations fall through. But this is neither a serious nor sustainable solution
Barring the question of whether the political capital exists for pushing forth such a move in the complicated and slow European political arena, there are many issues that come with a blanket ban. Not only would it create a major roadblock to European businesses and irritate consumers, as all would have to coalesce around new social media apps, but an exodus of American social media platforms would leave a vacuum to be filled by a private, Europe-wide monopolistic tech industry, that could, similarly to its US counterpart, inevitably grow to enormous proportions, putting European institutions in danger of yet another source of corruption and abuse, whose poisonous influence has been very well observed stateside. Important to note is also that a ban could also greatly encourage the already ongoing global fragmentation of social media platforms into different spheres of political influence, thus destroying the free and global internet that we all enjoy.
FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
No, the true solution, one that puts together the best of both worlds, would be algorithmic independence. In other words, rather than banning and replacing social media platforms, and take on the political, economic, and cultural hits associated with such a move, European policy could simply ensure that malicious altering of social media algorithms goes through transparent and heavily scrutinised checks by Brussels experts. This would, in effect, amount to an invisible dissection of global social media into two; one running on the European algorithm, i.e. secure from abrupt, harmful, politically charged, and unaccountable changes to the algorithm, and one for the rest of the world.
Indeed, this fix covers a remarkable amount of risks that banning would entail, while achieving its objective: a European democracy independent of foreign algorithmic interference. Not only would such a move be palatable to the regulation hawks of the European Parliament, but the Trump administration would have very little political pretext for opposition. On the other hand, to European users and businesses, very little would seemingly change. Furthermore, very little economic activity would be generated, the risk of a corrupting Big Tech presence is much lower, and the trend of a fracturing internet would be avoided as European users would be able to freely interact with their extra-EU counterparts.
Of course, an important caveat is the reality that the success of such an attempt would hinge on the ability of the EU to sculpt a truly competent, incorruptible, and transparent algorithmic audit system and team, a task that when faced with the money and programming skill of silicon valley’s best is no small feat. Another core weakness is the potential of a less democratic and less accountable European executive pressuring the audit system in an effort to force politically favourable algorithmic changes on the voter base, but to that one simply needs to realise that even weakened safeguards against domestic interference is preferable to no safeguards against free foreign manipulation.
This op-ed is part of To BHMA International Edition’s NextGen Corner, a platform for fresh voices on the defining issues of our time.
*Orpheas Afridi is a member of ELIAMEP’s EU Youth Hub, and is a British-Greek university student passionate about European, African, and global affairs in an unstable world.
