Facebook and Instagram outside the EU? Unfortunately not..
The new Meta Platforms (i.e. FB) is once again threatening to shut down two of its most popular social media services in the European Union if EU regulators do not reach a more adequate agreement on a new privacy agreement. data with regulators in Washington. A suicidal move which, of course, he will not do, but which indicates how important the data processed outside the EU are for these multinationals.
Meta said that if it could not rely on new or existing data to report some data collected from users in the United States using "standard contractual clauses", then "the agreements probably would not be able to offer a range of our most significant products and services. , including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe, ”according to Bloomberg. The warning came in Meta's annual report to the stock exchange.
This isn't the first time the company has threatened to stop its services in Europe: Meta raised the prospect of pulling the plug in last year's annual report as well. It also threatened to block the sharing of news articles on its platform in Australia after a court ruling required social media companies to pay news organizations for using their content. In short, Meta / Facebook cry wolf, but then do not act.
"We have absolutely no desire or intention to withdraw from Europe, but the simple reality is that Meta, and many other companies, organizations and services, rely on data transfers between the EU and the US to manage global services" Meta's spokesperson said in a statement sent by email.
All of this stems from a 2020 legal battle between Facebook and Ireland, during which the court ruled that Facebook could not use "standard contractual clauses" as a basis for transferring user data to servers in the United States. This is the “ Shrem II ” ruling and it founded the ban on exporting data to the USA on valid grounds: in the USA the data is used in an unclear way, even by the American secret services, and in any case the GDPR legislation on privacy is violated. Facebook attempted to appeal that decision, but the Irish court dismissed the appeal.
The GDPR is not that it has increased the privacy of citizens much, but it certainly has been a nuisance for the tech companies that, in the end, only had a little more bureaucracy. The GDPR rules did not work as they should, they did not decrease the data collection of the web majors, also because the various warning windows are beautifully, and perhaps rightly, ignored.
The only protection is precisely the conservation of data in the EU, indeed it would be better in the national states. This would weaken Big Tech, but in the end, they make money with this data, and national governments should have control over it anyway. So it is unlikely, indeed impossible, that Meta closes FB and Instagram, as long as they are useful. They are just skirmishes that have now become boring. Furthermore, the DSA , the new regulation of IT platforms in the EU, is being approved and this legislation will impact on the platforms, but they will not go away. They will pay more lobbyists.
And if they shut down Facebook and Instagram we will have the satisfaction of understanding what real work the various influencers could do …
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The article Facebook and Instagram outside the EU? Unfortunately no .. it comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/facebook-e-instagram-fuori-dalla-ue-purtroppo-no/ on Tue, 08 Feb 2022 11:00:34 +0000.