5 ms·

We don't have section 230 in Europe yet the sky isn't falling.

• twblalock 10y ago
  You don't have a vibrant tech sector either.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• guelo 10y ago
  Yea, all the giant European social media companies are doing fine. Oh wait, they don't exist. I wonder why.
  • eeZi 10y ago
    US companies like Facebook are doing business in Europe and have users in Europe, so they're subject to EU law.
    • twblalock 10y ago
      That could change. At some point, the cost of complying with EU regulation might be greater than the cost of shutting down the EU subsidiaries, and Facebook could do that, host all content in the US, and be subject to US law only. Would the EU block Facebook as a response? I doubt that will be a popular move.
      • eeZi 10y ago
        Neither of these are going to happen. Closing the EU subsidiary would be a PR disaster, especially after the recent lawsuit (Max Schrems vs. Facebook). While the EU obviously wouldn't block access to Facebook, I doubt that the cost of complying with regulation would be larger than shutting down their subsidiary. Think ad revenue, declining user base due to bad PR, and I don't think this move would go over well with their investors.
      • toomuchtodo 10y ago
        Hosting the content only in the US isn't a solution. When a corporation faces a state actor, there is rarely a way for the corporation to come out on top. Didn't Brazil recently require WhatsApp to cease service in the country for a short bit of time?
        • hueving 10y ago
          >Didn't Brazil recently require WhatsApp to cease service in the country for a short bit of time? No, a judge had whatsapp blocked in Brazil and it resulted in a backlash from citizens.
          • reitanqild 10y ago
            And AFAIK another increase in Telegram users, so Whatsapp bled as well.
          • TeMPOraL 10y ago
            And then you have e.g. Uber using that backlash effect as the core part of their business strategy, turning people against their governments to ensure a market for themselves. And then you have tobacco companies suing countries for anti-smoking laws, because fuck it, why not. And then you have corporations playing states and countries off each other by getting them to compete over jobs with tax breaks. So no, nation states do not really have the upper hand over corporations. It's the other way around these days.
            • hueving 10y ago
              >turning people against their governments to ensure a market for themselves. If the government is no longer representing the will of the people in a democracy, isn't change the point?
              • TeMPOraL 10y ago
                Not when you change the will of the people to go against their own interest so that you can make a profit.
      • kaeluka 10y ago
        #facexit
      • ddebernardy 10y ago
        Won't happen, and law doesn't quite work that way. Here's a case where an EU-based court chased a US company in Europe and won: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICRA_v._Yahoo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICRA_v._Yahoo!
      • Xylakant 10y ago
        That's not how things work. Under german law, if you provide a service that is targeted at german customers you're bound by german (hence EU) rules for that transaction, no matter where your company is located [1]. Enforcement may still be a problem, but since Facebook obviously needs to display ads that are locally relevant they need to have business interactions with EU company and it would be possible to make that at least harder, if not impossible. The EU doesn't need to block Facebook to punish it. Facebook may withdraw from the EU market as a result, but that's voluntary from facebooks side. [1] having a german localization is a strong indicator in that case.
        • AlgorithmicTime 10y ago
          I don't see how that would work. Presumably german companies could advertise with, say, the New York Times. So why wouldn't they be able to advertise with a Facebook based entirely outside the EU?
  • TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Badoo is doing fine, thank you. Also, if you wonder why, consider that the US kind of has a (decreasing, but still present) advantage on the Internet business market...
  • xsplain 10y ago
    That would be a net positive, so the sky is really not falling.