The ‘free choice’ trap in the age of Big Tech
Presenting the debate as a clash between freedom and control creates a convenient confusion
As governments across Europe move towards banning social media for young users, the debate around individual freedom, age verification and the risks of mass surveillance has grown louder.
National efforts to strengthen online protection for children have triggered international reactions. Spain’s plans to limit access to social media for under-16s were met with claims from Elon Musk that freedom of expression was under threat; Telegram CEO Pavel Durov warned of a slide towards a “surveillance state”. It’s a similar story whenever a European government tries to regulate large online platforms.
This rhetoric has a history. The tobacco industry long defended the “freedom to smoke” while public health systems bore the costs of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Opponents of mandatory seat belts invoked personal choice, even though the consequences of serious accidents reached far beyond the individual. In each case, appeals to individual freedom coexisted with a familiar distribution of costs and benefits: profits remained private, while the harms were widely shared.
The digital world follows a comparable logic. Large online platforms make vast profits from business models designed to capture, analyse and guide user behaviour, often by playing on emotional triggers. They also have significant and well-documented social costs, including addiction, the deterioration of mental health and the polarisation of public debate.
Article by Liliana Arroyo, Director of the Chair for Socially Responsible Digital Innovation (SoReDI) and professor and researcher in Esade’s Department of Society, Politics and Sustainability, published on Euractiv.com.