Europe Faces Facebook Blackout (politico.eu) 124
Europeans risk seeing social media services Facebook and Instagram shut down this summer, as Ireland's privacy regulator doubled down on its order to stop the firm's data flows to the United States. From a report: The Irish Data Protection Commission on Thursday informed its counterparts in Europe that it will block Facebook-owner Meta from sending user data from Europe to the U.S. The Irish regulator's draft decision cracks down on Meta's last legal resort to transfer large chunks of data to the U.S., after years of fierce court battles between the U.S. tech giant and European privacy activists.
The European Court of Justice in 2020 annulled an EU-U.S. data flows pact called Privacy Shield because of fears over U.S. surveillance practices. In its ruling, it also made it harder to use another legal tool that Meta and many other U.S. firms use to transfer personal data to the U.S., called standard contractual clauses (SCCs). This week's decision out of Ireland means Facebook is forced to stop relying on SCCs too. Meta has repeatedly warned that such a decision would shutter many of its services in Europe, including Facebook and Instagram.
The European Court of Justice in 2020 annulled an EU-U.S. data flows pact called Privacy Shield because of fears over U.S. surveillance practices. In its ruling, it also made it harder to use another legal tool that Meta and many other U.S. firms use to transfer personal data to the U.S., called standard contractual clauses (SCCs). This week's decision out of Ireland means Facebook is forced to stop relying on SCCs too. Meta has repeatedly warned that such a decision would shutter many of its services in Europe, including Facebook and Instagram.
and that is a bad thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, you can't complain about this and then cheer when the US talks about cracking down on TikTok/grindr/whatever allowing Chinese developers access to US user data. Good for the goose, good for the gander.
Re: and that is a bad thing? (Score:2)
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Of course - believing all the data hogs are a plague is a self-consistent position.
Good for them! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yup...
I was just pondering how we might possibly get something like this going IN the US, and shut them down here too?!?!
Who knows...civility, and people learning how to behave and interact in meatspace once again might just breakout in a year or so afterwards.
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"And there was much rejoicing" was my first thought.
Who say's god isn't real? (Score:3, Insightful)
At last! Something good from EU! (Score:3)
Good riddance, privacy-violator!
Don't get out hopes up (Score:3)
That would be the summer of content.
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Talk to physical humans?! Blaspheme! That's so 20th century.
Is WhatsApp affected? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Because no one gives a shit about Facebook, and Instagram is no longer the platform it used to be, but WhatsApp is still massive in Europe. And most of the world, outside the US.
Re:Is WhatsApp affected? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's plenty of alternatives. If WhatsApp becomes unavailable, you'll see how people will jump onto other services that essentially do the same. All that matters is where everyone else they care about goes.
People don't care what tool they use, the tool is chosen by where their friends are.
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Sure... eventually. But right now WA has a huuuuge userbase in that region of the world.
Remember a year or so ago when Facebook servers were down for ~1d and WhatsApp became unreachable? Businesses which rely on it for comms simply stopped working. It is common to see f.ex. restaurants relying solely on WA to take orders.
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Well, hopefully businesses start to learn that they're stupid if they do something insane like this. Hope a few of the more idiotic ones perish.
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Sure, they're the only ones. Shut down iMessage for a weekend and see what happens.
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Let's try that.
Absolute Fucking Nonsense. (Score:5, Interesting)
There is literally no reason to 'shutter the service'. That's pure blackmail.
It really isn't that hard to not send data back to the mothership. Or for that matter, to send data at all.
Grandstanding, blackmail, lies and deceptions. It's almost like Facebook is a mirror of itself.
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It is simple business 101. If it is not profitable stop doing it.
(*) You.
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I very much doubt that keeping to the laws in the EU will lose them money. It might reduce their profit some, though, which is probably a life threatening disaster to Facebook....
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It might reduce their profit some, though,
Do you still not get it?
Re: Absolute Fucking Nonsense. (Score:2, Insightful)
The comment about operating globally is fascinating to me: The company is literally operating in the US already. The demand is that the company stops operating where they are located, and instead move the data centers to Europe to be subject to EU law.
If the people in Europe do not want to do business with the US company, they can stop. Nobody is forcing Europeans to use the company. Other nations have successful local social media businesses, notably Russia and China.
If people in Europe want to use an Am
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Facebook operates from Ireland. Which is in the EU. So they are operating in the EU, and as such, have to follow the law in the EU.
They're most welcome to stop operating in the EU, but I'm pretty sure they, after throwing some massive tantrums, will not stop operating, and conform to the law.
They'd *still* be making profits, just not ALL.LL.LL the profits.
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It is just plain stupid to try to force a foreign company to do business elsewhere, especially when the company does not want to build services and infrastructure in the EU.
So you're saying that it's not stupid to accept a company that has no intentions of adhering to the laws of the region they operate in?
Would the US accept a foreign company that denies US laws?
If people in Europe want to use an American company that is their choice.
And if the people of europe want to make laws that protect their privacy then that is also their choice.
Got any more stupid shit to say?
It is just plain stupid to try to force a foreign company to do business elsewhere,
So are you saying that in europe european laws should not apply to foreign companies? Or just not to us companies? I'm not sure what the central point to your delusion is.
You should r
Re: Absolute Fucking Nonsense. (Score:2)
If I live in the US and choose to do business with a company in India, or China, or France or Germany, I need to accept the company with be operated under the law of their own country.
If I lived in Germany or France or elsewhere and decided to do business with a company located in the United States, it is similarly foolish to assume that the company would be forced to follow my country's rules even though they are not located there.
Demanding that a business follow foreign law has alw
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But when online customers from abroad come to the business, it is nonsense to require the business to comply with foreign law.
That sounds like nonsense and would constitute a serious disregard of local laws.
Say, there is a business that sells poisonous beer because it is legal in their country of operation. Say i live in a country where it is forbidden by law to sell poisonous beer. Does this company have the right in my country to sell me their poisonous beer?
And for the same reasons, if i, as an eu citizen, buy from an american company, you cannot possibly say that us laws apply to me. Because, fuck off please, we have our own l
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It is against the law to force one to pay for data privacy.
Personal data is private by default. And you as a company should pay if you want to utilize it.
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Sending data to the mothership -is- the service.
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They'll just have to design a daughtership.
The lady doth protest too much.
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I think you're wrong.
Social media is basically the largest megaphone ever created by humanity. It has incredible reach.
What this allows is for even single individuals to amass a huge audience.
The village idiot can gain a public of millions.
The instabilities that you say are already there are inherently tiny and insignificant (and most often deluded). But when you apply the unfathomable power of social media to them these tiny insignificant instabilities can be made to grow into actual cracks in society. Whi
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Back in the early days of mass-literacy & millions of people reading newspapers in the USA, the press were pretty much unregulated & printed the kinds of partisan, divisive, misleading & downright false news stories & editorials of the kind of extreme nature we find on Facebook today.
LOL, not even close.
Show me one newspaper that can create a personal informational cocoon for any random person on earth. You've apparently got no idea about how extreme the actual nature of platforms like facebook is. I mean, i believe you when you say the content was similar, but the range and precision of the delivery of this content is staggeringly more effective compared to ye ol' days.
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You think they're precise or even competent?
You don't need precision in that way. You need a relatively dumb algorithm and apply it at scale. What i mean by precision are the effects. The algorithm will relentlessly put you in an information bubble. In that respect it is extremely precise because it manages to create a personal bubble. But the algorithm doesn't require actual precision. It just does a few things and the precision comes from iterating it.
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But it IS working. How is it not working?
Ooh, i see:
They're no better than the mass-PR & marketing campaigns of yore.
That is only an illusion brought about by the fact that everyone uses these new tools and therefore a sort of balance is kept. It's basically an arms race. That's the situation from the companies perspective. But a lot more is happening on the societal end of things. Social cohesion is being degraded, extreme and fringe opinions are taking the front seat, the effects are numerous.
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It _could_ also be incompetence and they cannot change things fast enough. But I agree, probably pure arrogance.
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There is literally no reason to 'shutter the service'. That's pure blackmail.
This is standard business procedure for Facebook. When they were in the standoff with the Australian government about paying for "news," they shuttered all sorts of community pages, charities etc, just to be dicks. Of course Facebook blamed "the algorithm" for all the non-news that was blocked. But think about it, that makes it even worse. Facebook are a software company. If an "algorithm" that they developed can't do a simple job, why should we trust them with any of our data?
Facebook and all their bastard
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There is literally no reason to 'shutter the service'. That's pure blackmail.
Unless your business model relies on being a spy for the us government and the rules abroad make it impossible to fulfill that obligation. Then there is good reasons to 'shutter the service'.
Re: Absolute Fucking Nonsense. (Score:2)
If Facebook is dropped.... (Score:2)
...will any nerds notice?
If one Zuck drops dead in the woods (Score:2)
Does anyone give a fuck?
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And there was much rejoicing. (Or is that too cynical?)
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Well, rejoicing... I doubt I'd spare that much emotion when he croaks.
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Only that nerds would be called by their older relatives that still used Facebook, asking for some more unpaid tech support.
Risk? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm thinking a headline more along the lines of "Europeans are rewarded for good governance with the shutdown of Facebook."
Go ahead. I dare you. (Score:2)
Europe can live without Facebook. Let's face it, Facebook is already on the way out, being replaced by more "hip" and "trendy" social parasites. If they want to hasten their demise, more power to them.
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Whether you're snooped on by Farcebook or some other antisocial platform, what's the difference to you? If you use that kind of medium, you already demonstrated you don't give a flying fuck about your privacy.
Do you really care what street gang robs you?
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Since I live in a town where it's quite possible to go on the streets at night without any kind of problem, I am honestly not sure what you're getting at.
Game of chicken (Score:2)
Politicians would take a hit from many angry users* so they don't really want a shutdown, but they do want to change the social media company policies, and thus are hoping a mere threat results in changes, or at least a compromise.
* Not everyone cares a lot if they are being tracked and catalogues by media co's. They'd rather be snooped than pay a monthly fee.
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I would like to live in your country. I would work hard and happily pay taxes there.
Well... bye (Score:5, Insightful)
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Came here to say this but now that I think about it, I can't decide if the nothing of value is Facebook or European contributors to it.
Facebook would be fine if there were a no-politics filter for it. I'm inclined to quote Ferris Bueller: "I mean, really, what's the point? I'm not European. I don't plan on being European. So who cares if they're socialists? They could be fascist anarchists. It still doesn't change the fact that I don't own a car."
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Facebook would be fine if there were a no-politics filter for it.
It has such filters, you can filter out everything, either for a week, a month or 6 weeks or for ever.
"Europe risks" You mean Facebook risks (Score:2)
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Facebook is international, the local alternatives weren't, and plenty of them got bought by FB anyway.
My trip to Ireland this summer just got better... (Score:2)
If I don't have to deal with narcissistic assholes setting up obnoxious faux-photo shoots in the middle of public spaces that people are just trying to get through or enjoy in order to try to be e-famous "influencers" on Instagram, then this is just a positive change and I hope it extends to the rest of Europe as well.
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If I don't have to deal with narcissistic assholes setting up obnoxious faux-photo shoots in the middle of public spaces that people are just trying to get through or enjoy in order to try to be e-famous "influencers" on Instagram, then this is just a positive change and I hope it extends to the rest of Europe as well.
Let me introduce you to TikTok...
And nothing of value was lost (Score:2)
They're bluffing (Score:4, Interesting)
Zuckerberg and his underlings know perfectly well that if they pull out of Europe, either a new app or an existing one that has been choked into near oblivion by Facebook will inevitably replace it in one of the biggest markets in the Free World. They also know a huge chunk of the North American market would enthusiastically make the move, because Facebook has become such a vile cancer.
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American police have opened fire on unarmed protesters.
Fixed that for you.
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There is no "Free World" in the sense that you appear to be using the term. Different locations have different freedoms. (I want to rephrase that as "differing degrees of freedom along various dimensions".) Even various highly regimented locations have kinds of freedom that you probably don't have (though which would vary with the locations).
Most Europeans see themselves as quite free. E.g., French protestors act freely in ways that would appall many US protestors. The news is always slanted to present
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Just look at what's going on in Holland - the government declared war on their farmers. [substack.com]
You mean the farmers that were subsidized before and are now offered a fair compensation? Those farmers?
The government is to blame, but not for what you think. Because you've got no idea why this is going on.
Anyway, i don't expect you to understand dutch politics. But please refrain from speaking about things you know nothing about. And maybe pick up on the fact that the country is actually called the Netherlands and not Holland. Holland is not a country.
Also, that article you link to is pure garbage. Botto
Aren't names user data? (Score:2)
Honestly.. i dont think many would notice (Score:2)
Summer without Facebook (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the entire world should try the Summer without Facebook.
Now do the same with ... (Score:3)
Google analytics and other similar that shuttle data to the USA - usually without the user being aware of it and the web site not mentioning it.
good news! (Score:3)
Facebook and Instagram shut down this summer,
In other news: Experts predict GDP to rise by 20% in Europe over the summer.
Also: Labor shortage ended as thousands of former "influencers" now forced to look for actual jobs.
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Nice one!
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I dunno. Influenza were quite valuable, it gave the unemployables a feeling that they could actually do something. Now they'll just be back at not being qualified for, well, anything.
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Well, I need a new cleaning person. Maybe I should check out the influencers in the area while Insta and FB are still up?
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Could we start calling them "Influenzas", to mark them as the disease they are?
Oh no! (Score:2)
Yay! (Score:2)
It is horrible, HORRIBLE! (Score:2)
Am I being naive? (Score:2)
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All Meta has to do is move its servers to UK and continue to do business as usual.
Boy, have i got news for you.
Google the word 'brexit' for a surprising conclusion to your marvelous plan.
Better Headline (Score:2, Insightful)
A better headline would be
"Facebook risks losing access to billions of euros by failing to comply with regulations".
Lets be absolutely clear about this - social media companies will be the ones taking massive financial hits if they don't play by the rules.
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Hush! Don't you dare tell them, maybe they don't notice and we're finally rid of them.
Nope. Won’t happen. (Score:2)
too much money involved.
I hope it happens though, but we won’t be that lucky.
How tragic (Score:2)
Cool! (Score:2)
Can we also have some of that Facebook + Instagram blackout, please?
Signed,
Canadians.
and walk away leaving all tha money on the table? (Score:2)
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The way to maintain service is obvious. They've already got the server farms in Ireland, just stop transmitting individual data to the US. And they've know this was coming for about a decade now, so it's not like it's taking them by surprise.
Yeah ... nah (Score:2)
Any guesses at what Zuckerberg's shareholders think about pulling out of one of the wealthiest customer bases in the world covering half a billion people? Zuckerberg didn't even shut down in Australia with 1/20th of the population, instead just playing with the feed of Facebook users a bit.
A bit of an empty threat there.
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It's so much better when Facebook can access people's data arbitrarily and feed all your private messages and data into their own surveillance systems.
Re:The real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole reason the agreement was cancelled was that the US can't (won't) guarantee the privacy of European citizens.
If you want to equate the privacy protections in the US to the ones in the EU, go right ahead, but yeah...
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You can have all the privacy you want by not providing people with information.
Re:The real reason (Score:4, Insightful)
The EU has the same issue with US servers that the US has with Chinese servers.
Only issue here is that even the US can't keep a straight face when simultaneously protesting the opposite side of the argument with the EU and China...
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That's the perfect comparison, actually. It's exactly that.
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If the conservative voices stopped posting batshit insane and outright dangerous bullshit, there would be no reason to tell them to STFU when grownups talk.