The Anxious Continent: Social media bans and boozy trade deals
Brussels Playbook Podcast
POLITICO
4.4 • 204 Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | AI is incredible. They can teach you how to fry an egg and even write a poem, pirate style. |
| 0:07.0 | But it knows nothing about your work. Slackbot is different. It doesn't just know the facts. |
| 0:14.0 | It knows your schedule. It can turn a brainstorm into a brief and it doesn't need to be taught. |
| 0:20.0 | Because Slackbot isn't just another |
| 0:22.4 | AI. It's AI that knows your work as well as you do. Visit Slack.com forward slash meet Slackbot |
| 0:28.8 | to learn more. This week, the EU was testing what it really means to stand by its own internal rules |
| 0:35.4 | and its wider external ambitions. |
| 0:39.3 | At home, the European Commission has opened a new probe into Elon Musk's ex, after its AI tool, GROC, was linked to a surge of images of people's real faces on top of AI-generated naked bodies. |
| 0:54.3 | It's landed right in the middle of much bigger anguish about social media, |
| 0:58.4 | what they're doing to children, to mental health, to democracy, |
| 1:02.2 | and whether governments, and the EU itself, should go further. |
| 1:06.3 | One big option on the table is banning social media for kids, |
| 1:09.8 | as France and others are now proposing. |
| 1:13.0 | That debate has been given fresh momentum by Jonathan Haidt, an American social psychologist, |
| 1:18.7 | author, and a prominent critic of social media's effects on children. His work has helped |
| 1:23.8 | push these questions into the political mainstream. His conclusions, as well as his prescriptions, are still subject to fierce debate, |
| 1:32.3 | not only among tech companies, but also among researchers. |
| 1:36.3 | He was in Brussels this week and joined us in the studio, alongside Slovak MEP Veronica Sifrová Ostrichoniova. |
| 1:43.3 | They both argue that teen screen time isn't just a cultural or health issue. side Slovak MEP, Veronica Sifrová Ostrichoniova. |
| 1:49.1 | They both argue that teen screen time isn't just a cultural or health issue, but one with long-term consequences for Europe's economy as well. |
| 1:54.0 | And abroad, EU leaders have been in New Delhi, amid all the pomp and pageantry, finalizing |
| 2:00.8 | a major trade and defense deal with India. |
... |
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