It seems to me that like the United States, or my home state of California, the entire political class is dysfunctional, seeking to dogmatically follow whatever their particular party’s ideology is, whatever the cost or its denial of reality. This is because they are familiar and comfortable with it and that is what the donor class (read the wealthy) preferred at least in the past. Our politicians have been selected and trained for mindless obedience to the ruling oligarchs and corporations rather than to actually govern. I suspect that the radicalization and increasing separation of the genders and regions is a result of this as people try to find anyone who is willing to actually govern in accordance with reality.
Hopefully, the pragmatists, regardless of party, will be able to take power. But from the little that I understand in Germany and the UK, and the much more I understand about the United States, I believe that the pragmatists have much more struggling to do. Indeed, I think that the Democratic Party is likely to be the next American Whig Party with the Republican Party also facing a possible fracture later on depending on the Trump coalition and the several other factions in the party. Plus the effects of whatever disasters, economic, political, social, or military occur between now and the next two elections. It is just about a guarantee that there will be a disaster and the American government at all levels will be incapable of dealing with it due to the increasing incompetence.
It is interesting in a horrifying way to compared very different large, formerly powerful, wealthy, well run, countries find different ways to fall apart as it happens.
We live in a time of transition when the old ideas just don't seem to work any more, yet sensible new ones haven't been worked out yet.
The model of reality that many people in the Western world used to believe in has failed. This was inevitable because reality forces itself into our make belief world in the end.
Most people can't see that or won't accept it.
Some people can sort of see that but don't really understand it
Some people can see it more clearly but don't know what to do
A small number see it and are trying to take advantage of it to impose a new version of reality that suits them
An even smaller number see it and believe that our best course is to help others to understand it then work together to find the answers
Tomas, concerning the 2nd point: I have always wondered why you don't share a pausable version of your alternating maps. They are extremely interesting and useful, but sometimes (always) one wants to look deeper and the constant refreshing makes it impossible, even with a slowed-down version like the one you uploaded here. I know that you make them in order to visually highlight similarities, but a pausable version in the notes would always be much appreciated!
I'm also very much looking forward to your next article about freedom of speech. Honestly (and I certainly might be wrong), I have sometimes had the impression that your opinion on freedom of speech in Europe is a bit distorted. I don't know about the rest of the Continent but at least in Italy, I have never felt any censorship at all, either explicit or implicit: actually I am a lot more concerned about the fact that somebody can insult me or, even worse, falsely accuse me of anything and I would be a fool to sue him because, most likely, nothing's going to happen.
As a resident of Germany, it's been very interesting to read Tomas' articles about nuclear policy over the last several years. Time and again, I've heard Germans say that our nuclear plants "can't" be reopened...but of course it can be done, if you are motivated and willing to throw enough money at the problem.
The question is: is it worth it? Many Germans are starting to think so - definitely more than a few years ago - but the anti-nuclear sentiment here is noticeably deeper than in other countries I've lived in.
Overall, it's been a good lesson in the value of avoiding absolutes, and instead considering the costs and benefits of different courses of action.
The outcome is likely to be that the party with second most votes will have no power in government, and the party that came third will have power. Seems a bit daft to me.
In fact, it's quite normal in political systems with more than two or three parties that the winner of the election doesn't form a coalition with the party that came in second, but with a smaller one - it's much easier to negotiate with a smaller partner. But it's also good for democracy because with a bigger opposition, the governing parties can't just dominate parliament.
It is very very ironic that you chose to restrict the comment section of a post on freedom of speech (your next one) to those who are your paid subscribers only.
Perhaps your readers might benefit from reading this article and stepping back from the brink
Sure. We're all free to define freedom, irony and government as we want. Government is whoever governs, and on your substack you are the one who *governs*, ie. sets the rules. Maybe we differ on what irony means to us.
But what's your rationale behind this differentiated policy - why are some your opinions open to debate, and some others need to be protected from "those people"?
Anyways keep up the good work, everyone has some bad ideas, and the best of people have at some point had terrible opinions on something or the other.
In H1 2024 Germany imported 4% of electricity from France, 6300 MWh
Macron announced in 2022 in response to maintenance outages and Ukraine war a reversal of prior policy, which was to allow plants go offline at end of life with nuclear contribution dropping from 70% of total to 50% by 2050. The first action taken is regulations allowing plants to continue operating past 40 years of age
France has 57 operating reactors, all opened before 2000 except one, Flammanville 3 just went online Dec 2024
Macron nationalised the national power monopoly EDF. They now have early site prep in progress to construct 3 more reactors totalling 4500 MWh over next 25 years. Macron wants that to be 6 reactors
One fact that is not well known is that when France was at 50% nuclear capacity in 2022 after Putin invaded Ukraine, it was because nuclear repairs are scheduled for when demand is low.
Tomas, you have the point that the Green DNA infiltrated in German mainstream "has shut down nuclear power" literally. But nuclear power is by far not disentangled from "Germany's biggest enemy" (whoever coined this term). There is no autarkic acqusition of uranium in the EU, apart from Russia, it comes from Niger and Kazakhstan. And there is the nimby attitude for nuclear waste. So all is a matter of priorities.
Canada and Australia account for over 20% of the supply, and that is highly elastic. They could easily expand it if we wanted to. Uranium is not something very difficult to find in nature.
Very interesting the map in part 2 about the election results. Looks like east germany has the most AfD voters which surprised me since they also have the least immigration (except for Russians) .
That's what's so interesting - the places in Germany with the least immigrants are where the anti-immigrant parties and movements (e.g. PEGIDA, which started in Dresden) are most successful. Which could suggest that fear is the motivator, and when people actually know and interact with immigrants, they become more friendly towards immigrants.
But cause and effect go the other way, too - many places that vote AfD are not nice places for immigrants, so they stay away.
(Background: I am Canadian, but have lived in Germany for 10+ years)
Regardless of the benefits of reopening nuclear plants in Germany, it won’t happen: Every CEO of any operator who could run such a plant has made it very clear before the election that they are not interested, and would see it as a mistake.
Also, nuclear energy unfortunately also depends on Russia, which is the biggest source for Uranium and would be difficult to avoid as a provider.
Baseload power will need to be supplied by natural gas fueled generators whenever renewables can’t provide it, that’s the plan and although it’s not ideal it is the best compromise for the foreseeable future. Also because such plants are far more flexible than nuclear plants in power up and power down, therefore a much better complement.
• This is not what the head of the future government is saying. He is saying he wants to reopen them.
• The energy operators say they don't want to reopen because they say it's not economical *because they would need a minimum amount of years of poperation guaranteed*, which the Greens didn't want to concede. The CDU will.
• Nuclear does absolutely not depend on Russia. Some of the existing reactors were using Russian rods, but (a) they had plenty of fuel stored, and (b) other producers can make these rods in other countries.
• The plan you claim is the official plan, and that plan is stupid because it's bad for all the reasons I mentioned
We will see what happens, based on all I heard from the CEOs in the German media is that they are also against reopening.
Like Matt says, Merz already said many things. I've followed the campaign closely and am interested in how good the execution of all of this will now be.
I wouldn't be surprised if they will again blaim the Greens...
Tomas, please keep in mind that Merz already said a lot of things, some of them in contradiction with each other. He tried to cast a very wide net during his election campaign. Believe it or not, the nuclear plants will not reopen, no matter if you think that it is stupid (I don’t agreed with you as I mentioned). Also, the utility CEOs made some very clear and unqualified statements that they have no interest.
Brokdorf, Emsland and Grohnde are only partially decommissioned and could be back in service by next year. The other plants have been more damaged than these in decommissioning but rebuilding cooling towers is a lot cheaper than LNG plants or batteries. The decommissioning itself is costing over 1€ billion so just stopping that would be beneficial.
Merkel policy of building North-stream gas pipelines also irritated (to put it mildly) many other countries (Ukraine, Baltics, Poland, US, etc.); plus via pushing forward despite European Commission reservations showed that Germany feels entitled to different standards when working within UE than other countries - what increased reservations against EU policies that were not liked in the different parts of Europe.
A first point is unfortunately wrong here: when Russia's war of aggression began on 24 February 2022, only 3 nuclear power plants were still in operation (Emsland, Neckarwestheim 2, Isar 2) and not 6.
A second point is that between November 2005 and December 2021, the Greens were not part of any federal government. During this period, 11 nuclear power plants were shut down. 3 more were shut down as planned in December 2021, i.e. immediately after the new election. All of these shutdowns were based on a law passed by the CDU/CSU and FDP and 11 of them were implemented by federal governments of the CDU/CSU, FDP and SPD without the involvement of the Greens. How the Greens can still be blamed for this remains a complete mystery to me.
The fact is that until the beginning of 2022, the phase-out was supported by a broad social consensus across almost all party boundaries. At this point, there were only three nuclear power plants left, which were responsible for 6.4% of electricity generation.
Correct, but the other 3 had been closed just two months earlier and by law they had not started decommissioning them yet, they could be reopened fast
Your point on the greens is amply addressed in the article. Next time please read before commenting. They can be blamed because:
1. The rest of the world was turning back to nuclear
2. Germany had more reasons than most to do it, as it needed to become independent from Russia energetically
3. The public wanted it
4. The authors of the paper that concluded that Germany should not revisit this opinion were the leaders of the Green party, who controlled the Economy and Environment ministries.
Yes, I agree that the Greens are partly responsible for the fact that the last 3 nuclear power plants were not extended and that the power plants shut down in December 2021 were not switched on again. However, as I have explained, the entire process of the phase-out since 2011 is certainly not the sole responsibility of the Greens and, even if perhaps desirable, could not simply be completely reversed from 2022 onwards. Even the relatively optimistic estimates in the Radiant Energy Group article that you linked to do not assume that all the power plants that have been shut down since 2011 could be reopened.
So yes, of course the Greens bear part of the responsibility, but so do the other parties under whose government 11 power plants were shut down, as well as the public, most of whom supported the phase-out until 2021.
With regard to your point 2, it is perhaps interesting to note that the Greens have been the only party in the Bundestag to warn against this dependency since 2014. However, in addition to calling for a much greater expansion of renewable energy, nuclear power would of course also have been useful.
I much prefer Chris's use of the word responsibility rather than the word blame, which is often used as a tool of power and conflict, tends to represent a very black and white view of the world and implies that punishment should follow.
Well, the first two comments object to your pro-nuclear power advocacy. Sad. As a nuclear power advocate in California, USA, I've been following this German environmental and political issue. California is facing the same nuclear to coal transition. Already one of its reactors was needlessly shut down at the end of January, 2012 and is now mostly replaced with Wyoming coal. I believe that Warren Buffett's greed is the motivation in California. I have written about Germany here: "Protesting California's Ongoing Nuclear to Coal Transition - Part 2 German deindustrialization follows slashing safe, reliable, cost-effective and zero-pollution nuclear power generation" https://greennuke.substack.com/p/protesting-californias-ongoing-nuclear-4fa
That is not true, I made no judgemental statement about the use of nuclear technology.
In fact, I explicitly agree with Thomas on most of the points he makes in other articles on this topic. And I also explicitly agree that it would have been better for Germany's energy policy and for the climate if 11 nuclear power plants had not been shut down under the CDU/CSU, FDP and SPD.
However, I do not agree with the highly under-complex scapegoat theory that all bad developments are blamed on a party that has not been in government for 16 years.
Maybe the radicalization of the young is owed to social media use / influence. It is easy there to create target specific bubbles.
An Austrian medium („Tagespresse“) recently created a set of fake TikTok accounts posing as young adults and found that they almost immediately got quite onesided and unexpectedly radical content to view (without „tampering“ to achieve such results).
Greener than spinach. That's a new one on me! 🤣
Very similar political split between M/F young voters is observed in Poland
Iirc that has been observed in most western countries including the US
Why women to the left and men to the right? Would be great if Tomas could investigate further on that.
Yes, it hasn't always been like that. Political coalitions are the oddest things.
It seems to me that like the United States, or my home state of California, the entire political class is dysfunctional, seeking to dogmatically follow whatever their particular party’s ideology is, whatever the cost or its denial of reality. This is because they are familiar and comfortable with it and that is what the donor class (read the wealthy) preferred at least in the past. Our politicians have been selected and trained for mindless obedience to the ruling oligarchs and corporations rather than to actually govern. I suspect that the radicalization and increasing separation of the genders and regions is a result of this as people try to find anyone who is willing to actually govern in accordance with reality.
Hopefully, the pragmatists, regardless of party, will be able to take power. But from the little that I understand in Germany and the UK, and the much more I understand about the United States, I believe that the pragmatists have much more struggling to do. Indeed, I think that the Democratic Party is likely to be the next American Whig Party with the Republican Party also facing a possible fracture later on depending on the Trump coalition and the several other factions in the party. Plus the effects of whatever disasters, economic, political, social, or military occur between now and the next two elections. It is just about a guarantee that there will be a disaster and the American government at all levels will be incapable of dealing with it due to the increasing incompetence.
It is interesting in a horrifying way to compared very different large, formerly powerful, wealthy, well run, countries find different ways to fall apart as it happens.
As a pragmatist I couldn't agree more.
We live in a time of transition when the old ideas just don't seem to work any more, yet sensible new ones haven't been worked out yet.
The model of reality that many people in the Western world used to believe in has failed. This was inevitable because reality forces itself into our make belief world in the end.
Most people can't see that or won't accept it.
Some people can sort of see that but don't really understand it
Some people can see it more clearly but don't know what to do
A small number see it and are trying to take advantage of it to impose a new version of reality that suits them
An even smaller number see it and believe that our best course is to help others to understand it then work together to find the answers
Tomas, concerning the 2nd point: I have always wondered why you don't share a pausable version of your alternating maps. They are extremely interesting and useful, but sometimes (always) one wants to look deeper and the constant refreshing makes it impossible, even with a slowed-down version like the one you uploaded here. I know that you make them in order to visually highlight similarities, but a pausable version in the notes would always be much appreciated!
I'm also very much looking forward to your next article about freedom of speech. Honestly (and I certainly might be wrong), I have sometimes had the impression that your opinion on freedom of speech in Europe is a bit distorted. I don't know about the rest of the Continent but at least in Italy, I have never felt any censorship at all, either explicit or implicit: actually I am a lot more concerned about the fact that somebody can insult me or, even worse, falsely accuse me of anything and I would be a fool to sue him because, most likely, nothing's going to happen.
Thank you for the feedback and the thought on free speech! Let’s see what you think!
As a resident of Germany, it's been very interesting to read Tomas' articles about nuclear policy over the last several years. Time and again, I've heard Germans say that our nuclear plants "can't" be reopened...but of course it can be done, if you are motivated and willing to throw enough money at the problem.
The question is: is it worth it? Many Germans are starting to think so - definitely more than a few years ago - but the anti-nuclear sentiment here is noticeably deeper than in other countries I've lived in.
Overall, it's been a good lesson in the value of avoiding absolutes, and instead considering the costs and benefits of different courses of action.
The outcome is likely to be that the party with second most votes will have no power in government, and the party that came third will have power. Seems a bit daft to me.
In fact, it's quite normal in political systems with more than two or three parties that the winner of the election doesn't form a coalition with the party that came in second, but with a smaller one - it's much easier to negotiate with a smaller partner. But it's also good for democracy because with a bigger opposition, the governing parties can't just dominate parliament.
It is very very ironic that you chose to restrict the comment section of a post on freedom of speech (your next one) to those who are your paid subscribers only.
Perhaps your readers might benefit from reading this article and stepping back from the brink
https://aeon.co/essays/why-its-as-hard-to-escape-an-echo-chamber-as-it-is-to-flee-a-cult
I am glad you took this stance before I decided to pay, then I might have tried to justify my decision by apologizing for your stance.
Hi!
Not so ironic as freedom of speech is freedom from the government, not full access to what every person wants to say!
Sure. We're all free to define freedom, irony and government as we want. Government is whoever governs, and on your substack you are the one who *governs*, ie. sets the rules. Maybe we differ on what irony means to us.
But what's your rationale behind this differentiated policy - why are some your opinions open to debate, and some others need to be protected from "those people"?
Anyways keep up the good work, everyone has some bad ideas, and the best of people have at some point had terrible opinions on something or the other.
I want to take in more of the information in the maps----could the viewer control when to move to the next map?
Will try in the future
I was curious about France nuclear plans:
(from World Nuclear Assn)
In H1 2024 Germany imported 4% of electricity from France, 6300 MWh
Macron announced in 2022 in response to maintenance outages and Ukraine war a reversal of prior policy, which was to allow plants go offline at end of life with nuclear contribution dropping from 70% of total to 50% by 2050. The first action taken is regulations allowing plants to continue operating past 40 years of age
France has 57 operating reactors, all opened before 2000 except one, Flammanville 3 just went online Dec 2024
Macron nationalised the national power monopoly EDF. They now have early site prep in progress to construct 3 more reactors totalling 4500 MWh over next 25 years. Macron wants that to be 6 reactors
Correct!
One fact that is not well known is that when France was at 50% nuclear capacity in 2022 after Putin invaded Ukraine, it was because nuclear repairs are scheduled for when demand is low.
Tomas, you have the point that the Green DNA infiltrated in German mainstream "has shut down nuclear power" literally. But nuclear power is by far not disentangled from "Germany's biggest enemy" (whoever coined this term). There is no autarkic acqusition of uranium in the EU, apart from Russia, it comes from Niger and Kazakhstan. And there is the nimby attitude for nuclear waste. So all is a matter of priorities.
I address this in my article:
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/why-nuclear-is-the-best-energy
Canada and Australia account for over 20% of the supply, and that is highly elastic. They could easily expand it if we wanted to. Uranium is not something very difficult to find in nature.
Very interesting the map in part 2 about the election results. Looks like east germany has the most AfD voters which surprised me since they also have the least immigration (except for Russians) .
That's what's so interesting - the places in Germany with the least immigrants are where the anti-immigrant parties and movements (e.g. PEGIDA, which started in Dresden) are most successful. Which could suggest that fear is the motivator, and when people actually know and interact with immigrants, they become more friendly towards immigrants.
But cause and effect go the other way, too - many places that vote AfD are not nice places for immigrants, so they stay away.
(Background: I am Canadian, but have lived in Germany for 10+ years)
It's the same with wind turbines - people that live near them usually aren't bothered by them. People than don't live near them are.
Regardless of the benefits of reopening nuclear plants in Germany, it won’t happen: Every CEO of any operator who could run such a plant has made it very clear before the election that they are not interested, and would see it as a mistake.
Also, nuclear energy unfortunately also depends on Russia, which is the biggest source for Uranium and would be difficult to avoid as a provider.
Baseload power will need to be supplied by natural gas fueled generators whenever renewables can’t provide it, that’s the plan and although it’s not ideal it is the best compromise for the foreseeable future. Also because such plants are far more flexible than nuclear plants in power up and power down, therefore a much better complement.
• This is not what the head of the future government is saying. He is saying he wants to reopen them.
• The energy operators say they don't want to reopen because they say it's not economical *because they would need a minimum amount of years of poperation guaranteed*, which the Greens didn't want to concede. The CDU will.
• Nuclear does absolutely not depend on Russia. Some of the existing reactors were using Russian rods, but (a) they had plenty of fuel stored, and (b) other producers can make these rods in other countries.
• The plan you claim is the official plan, and that plan is stupid because it's bad for all the reasons I mentioned
We will see what happens, based on all I heard from the CEOs in the German media is that they are also against reopening.
Like Matt says, Merz already said many things. I've followed the campaign closely and am interested in how good the execution of all of this will now be.
I wouldn't be surprised if they will again blaim the Greens...
Tomas, please keep in mind that Merz already said a lot of things, some of them in contradiction with each other. He tried to cast a very wide net during his election campaign. Believe it or not, the nuclear plants will not reopen, no matter if you think that it is stupid (I don’t agreed with you as I mentioned). Also, the utility CEOs made some very clear and unqualified statements that they have no interest.
In addition, how much would/will running and restarting them cost?
The cost per MWh would be cheaper than coal or gas, that's for sure
Brokdorf, Emsland and Grohnde are only partially decommissioned and could be back in service by next year. The other plants have been more damaged than these in decommissioning but rebuilding cooling towers is a lot cheaper than LNG plants or batteries. The decommissioning itself is costing over 1€ billion so just stopping that would be beneficial.
Merkel policy of building North-stream gas pipelines also irritated (to put it mildly) many other countries (Ukraine, Baltics, Poland, US, etc.); plus via pushing forward despite European Commission reservations showed that Germany feels entitled to different standards when working within UE than other countries - what increased reservations against EU policies that were not liked in the different parts of Europe.
That policy was bad
A first point is unfortunately wrong here: when Russia's war of aggression began on 24 February 2022, only 3 nuclear power plants were still in operation (Emsland, Neckarwestheim 2, Isar 2) and not 6.
A second point is that between November 2005 and December 2021, the Greens were not part of any federal government. During this period, 11 nuclear power plants were shut down. 3 more were shut down as planned in December 2021, i.e. immediately after the new election. All of these shutdowns were based on a law passed by the CDU/CSU and FDP and 11 of them were implemented by federal governments of the CDU/CSU, FDP and SPD without the involvement of the Greens. How the Greens can still be blamed for this remains a complete mystery to me.
The fact is that until the beginning of 2022, the phase-out was supported by a broad social consensus across almost all party boundaries. At this point, there were only three nuclear power plants left, which were responsible for 6.4% of electricity generation.
Correct, but the other 3 had been closed just two months earlier and by law they had not started decommissioning them yet, they could be reopened fast
Your point on the greens is amply addressed in the article. Next time please read before commenting. They can be blamed because:
1. The rest of the world was turning back to nuclear
2. Germany had more reasons than most to do it, as it needed to become independent from Russia energetically
3. The public wanted it
4. The authors of the paper that concluded that Germany should not revisit this opinion were the leaders of the Green party, who controlled the Economy and Environment ministries.
Yes, I agree that the Greens are partly responsible for the fact that the last 3 nuclear power plants were not extended and that the power plants shut down in December 2021 were not switched on again. However, as I have explained, the entire process of the phase-out since 2011 is certainly not the sole responsibility of the Greens and, even if perhaps desirable, could not simply be completely reversed from 2022 onwards. Even the relatively optimistic estimates in the Radiant Energy Group article that you linked to do not assume that all the power plants that have been shut down since 2011 could be reopened.
So yes, of course the Greens bear part of the responsibility, but so do the other parties under whose government 11 power plants were shut down, as well as the public, most of whom supported the phase-out until 2021.
With regard to your point 2, it is perhaps interesting to note that the Greens have been the only party in the Bundestag to warn against this dependency since 2014. However, in addition to calling for a much greater expansion of renewable energy, nuclear power would of course also have been useful.
I agree! What Merkel did with the nuclear plants (and gas) is terrible.
And I agree that the green party's alarms against Russians were good
Just a point about the use of words.
I much prefer Chris's use of the word responsibility rather than the word blame, which is often used as a tool of power and conflict, tends to represent a very black and white view of the world and implies that punishment should follow.
Well, the first two comments object to your pro-nuclear power advocacy. Sad. As a nuclear power advocate in California, USA, I've been following this German environmental and political issue. California is facing the same nuclear to coal transition. Already one of its reactors was needlessly shut down at the end of January, 2012 and is now mostly replaced with Wyoming coal. I believe that Warren Buffett's greed is the motivation in California. I have written about Germany here: "Protesting California's Ongoing Nuclear to Coal Transition - Part 2 German deindustrialization follows slashing safe, reliable, cost-effective and zero-pollution nuclear power generation" https://greennuke.substack.com/p/protesting-californias-ongoing-nuclear-4fa
I also recognize there is a strong anti-nuclear power propaganda operation in Germany.... The political advocacy of German Greens is partially funded via German taxpayers through the Heinrich Böll Foundation (hbs.) Here's an anti-nuclear power example post: "Renewables replace nuclear and lower emissions simultaneously," Craig Morris, 20 Nov 2019, Energy Transition - The Global Energiewende blog. https://energytransition.org/2019/11/renewables-replace-nuclear-and-lower-emissions-simultaneously/ This essay is pure propaganda, contrary to the laws of physics, engineering, and economics. The German greens website is an initiative of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. © 2012 - 2024. The hbs has elegant offices in Berlin. The hbs also has offices in the West Bank of Palestine, Moscow, Russia, Beijing, China, and Washington, DC. Many of the policies of the hbs are socialist policies dressed in "green" garb.
That is not true, I made no judgemental statement about the use of nuclear technology.
In fact, I explicitly agree with Thomas on most of the points he makes in other articles on this topic. And I also explicitly agree that it would have been better for Germany's energy policy and for the climate if 11 nuclear power plants had not been shut down under the CDU/CSU, FDP and SPD.
However, I do not agree with the highly under-complex scapegoat theory that all bad developments are blamed on a party that has not been in government for 16 years.
Maybe the radicalization of the young is owed to social media use / influence. It is easy there to create target specific bubbles.
An Austrian medium („Tagespresse“) recently created a set of fake TikTok accounts posing as young adults and found that they almost immediately got quite onesided and unexpectedly radical content to view (without „tampering“ to achieve such results).