7 ms·

Sure, people will love the party that got Google or Facebook banned

tester34 6y ago
Somebody has to commit hard decisions in order to get rid of USA based overseers.
phtrivier 6y ago
That's the beauty of it being an EU-level regulation: each national party can plausibly deny being "the party that got Facebook banned", and pretends it's "because of those technocrats in Brussels." That being said, of course Google and FB are never going to be banned in the EU. They'll lobby to death to get the regulation to be "reasonable", and they'll mostly comply because they want their part of the advertising market, and they'll pay the fines when they get caught.
- piker 6y ago
  Ah, yes, the "beauty" of unaccountable government action.
  - throwaway2048 6y ago
    Ill take it over unaccountable private action, at least there is a chance of influencing government policy. Good luck influencing Google or Facebook's policy.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    The thing is that they're not actually unaccountable. You vote for them.
    - AlphaSite 6y ago
      You only indirectly vote for the,
      - oblio 6y ago
        > indirectly vote That's how representative democracy works, and it's the kind of democracy 95% of the world uses.
        AlphaSite 6y ago
        I think it’s more that there are more layers of indirection than are typical for a democratic system.
  - cataphract 6y ago
    Hardly. EU legislation generally needs a majority from the EU parliament (directly elected) and a qualified majority from the Council.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  > each national party can plausibly deny being "the party that got Facebook banned", and pretends it's "because of those technocrats in Brussels." Given that Brexit is looming, this doesn't sound very sustainable. If the people feel the EU's power is no longer legitimate, there may be consequences.
  - Vespasian 6y ago
    Brexit happened on 31.01.2020.
    - jlokier 6y ago
      It did, technically. But the transition arrangements mean everything of importance changes at the end of 31.12.2020. So far it's just a lot of government adverts telling us how things are going to be worse and to prepare for it. How much extra paperwork, tariffs, expenses, licenses, applications-for-permission etc there will be come 31st December, how we can no longer conduct some kinds of business, how professional qualifications cease to be valid in Britain after 31st December, and how some people who are currently employed can no longer be employed from 1st January. All the adverts and policy effects that actually affect people are focused on 31.12.2020. (Reading between the lines it also means some people will no longer be permitted a bank account or the ability to rent a roof starting in the middle of next year, though the government prefers not to headline that unpalatable truth.) On 31.12.2020 things will change in a way that affects some of us harshly indeed. I'm British. As far as I'm concerned, Brexit proper happens for me on 31.12.2020 because that's the day I'm deprived of my previous life-long right to work, study and move my life to the other EU countries, which I have previously used, and hoped to use again :'( I absolutely hate that such a major freedom, and my family's freedom, and my EU citizenship, is being taken away so forcefully against my consent and without me breaking any laws. I was considering leaving Britain and emigrating to another EU country this year under EU-citizenship-grandfathering terms, but Covid made it infeasible. If the Brexit transition period had been extended I might have been able to do it next year, but it will cease to be possible after 31.12.2020. What a Christmas present. On 31st this year, around midnight, many of us will mark a day of darkness and sadness, as doors close on our life choices, and the Britain some of us had some sort of love and pride in some years ago finally ceases to exist.
- disabled 6y ago
  > That being said, of course Google and FB are never going to be banned in the EU. They'll lobby to death to get the regulation to be "reasonable", and they'll mostly comply because they want their part of the advertising market, and they'll pay the fines when they get caught. Sure they can be banned EU-wide, although it can obviously be circumvented by the ambitious. Have you been paying attention to EU politics lately regarding the digital single market? Because the EU already has huge behind-the-scenes plans (generally unannounced) for EU based platforms and developments.
  - Kbelicius 6y ago
    Do you have any resources that you could share on those behind-the-scene plans?
yokaze 6y ago
That's the point of doing it at EU level (and I think a contributing factor to Brexit): there is no party doing it, it is done via consensus on EU level. And on the local level, the politicians blame the EU for it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  > And on the local level, the politicians blame the EU for it. Ultimately, local politicians are the EU's decision-makers. MEPs sit as members of national political parties; the European Council are heads of national governments. Passing the buck to the EU is a weak position, and in general a mistruth. There aren't many issues divides nations in the EU from each other - most, if not all, decisions that the EU takes have divisions within nations (between the political groups), not without (between national groups). You can argue that "blame the EU" is a position that the UK government has taken successfully - continually blaming the EU for any problems that they have created themselves (sometimes blaming the EU despite incompetently avoiding the EU's clear recommendations). But, now that the UK has left the EU, they don't have anyone left to blame for their own poor planning and decisions. We'll see how that pans out.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Google is tricky, but I doubt Facebook will be missed much.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  Facebook the app, maybe not so much in Europe, but WhatsApp is pretty much the defacto cross platform messaging app here that everyone uses and also Facebook's Messenger app is used quite a lot for group chats where you don't have everyone's phone numbers.
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  Well lots of Europeans use Facebook. No one will die if you block it, but there will be somewhat of a void for many services people got used to which would be gone.
nicoburns 6y ago
Google would upset a lot of people, but I think quite a lot of people would be quite happy with a Facebook ban. Even quite heavy users of Facebook/Instagram seem to recognise the unhealthy effects it has on them. More likely the EU would negotiate with the companies rather than outright ban them.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hrktb 6y ago
Amazon got suspended for a while during COVID times, people weren't rioting in the streets over it (they were still rioting over other issues, just not Amazon)
nocturnial 6y ago
When the privacy commission in my country acted against facebook, it retaliated by issuing a country wide ban [1]. As far as I can tell, this had no noticable effect on the political parties. I think you are overestimating the power of large tech companies to influence foreign EU democracies. There are other examples, including one involving google, where they tried to block access to certain services and expected the population to blame their government. Unless you can give me a counter example, I think it's more likely people will blame the tech company. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/9c9bf084-994f-11e5-95c7-d47aa298f769 https://www.ft.com/content/9c9bf084-994f-11e5-95c7-d47aa298f...
cuban-frisbee 6y ago
It's not like the products will disappear. Rather they will likely be split into different companies that wields far less power. I highly doubt the average european consumer will care if whatsapp is its own company again or instagram for that matter. Likewise with the various google product groups.

Somebody has to commit hard decisions in order to get rid of USA based overseers.

That's the beauty of it being an EU-level regulation: each national party can plausibly deny being "the party that got Facebook banned", and pretends it's "because of those technocrats in Brussels." That being said, of course Google and FB are never going to be banned in the EU. They'll lobby to death to get the regulation to be "reasonable", and they'll mostly comply because they want their part of the advertising market, and they'll pay the fines when they get caught.

piker 6y ago
Ah, yes, the "beauty" of unaccountable government action.
- throwaway2048 6y ago
  Ill take it over unaccountable private action, at least there is a chance of influencing government policy. Good luck influencing Google or Facebook's policy.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  The thing is that they're not actually unaccountable. You vote for them.
  - AlphaSite 6y ago
    You only indirectly vote for the,
    - oblio 6y ago
      > indirectly vote That's how representative democracy works, and it's the kind of democracy 95% of the world uses.
      - AlphaSite 6y ago
        I think it’s more that there are more layers of indirection than are typical for a democratic system.
- cataphract 6y ago
  Hardly. EU legislation generally needs a majority from the EU parliament (directly elected) and a qualified majority from the Council.
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
> each national party can plausibly deny being "the party that got Facebook banned", and pretends it's "because of those technocrats in Brussels." Given that Brexit is looming, this doesn't sound very sustainable. If the people feel the EU's power is no longer legitimate, there may be consequences.
- Vespasian 6y ago
  Brexit happened on 31.01.2020.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    It did, technically. But the transition arrangements mean everything of importance changes at the end of 31.12.2020. So far it's just a lot of government adverts telling us how things are going to be worse and to prepare for it. How much extra paperwork, tariffs, expenses, licenses, applications-for-permission etc there will be come 31st December, how we can no longer conduct some kinds of business, how professional qualifications cease to be valid in Britain after 31st December, and how some people who are currently employed can no longer be employed from 1st January. All the adverts and policy effects that actually affect people are focused on 31.12.2020. (Reading between the lines it also means some people will no longer be permitted a bank account or the ability to rent a roof starting in the middle of next year, though the government prefers not to headline that unpalatable truth.) On 31.12.2020 things will change in a way that affects some of us harshly indeed. I'm British. As far as I'm concerned, Brexit proper happens for me on 31.12.2020 because that's the day I'm deprived of my previous life-long right to work, study and move my life to the other EU countries, which I have previously used, and hoped to use again :'( I absolutely hate that such a major freedom, and my family's freedom, and my EU citizenship, is being taken away so forcefully against my consent and without me breaking any laws. I was considering leaving Britain and emigrating to another EU country this year under EU-citizenship-grandfathering terms, but Covid made it infeasible. If the Brexit transition period had been extended I might have been able to do it next year, but it will cease to be possible after 31.12.2020. What a Christmas present. On 31st this year, around midnight, many of us will mark a day of darkness and sadness, as doors close on our life choices, and the Britain some of us had some sort of love and pride in some years ago finally ceases to exist.
disabled 6y ago
> That being said, of course Google and FB are never going to be banned in the EU. They'll lobby to death to get the regulation to be "reasonable", and they'll mostly comply because they want their part of the advertising market, and they'll pay the fines when they get caught. Sure they can be banned EU-wide, although it can obviously be circumvented by the ambitious. Have you been paying attention to EU politics lately regarding the digital single market? Because the EU already has huge behind-the-scenes plans (generally unannounced) for EU based platforms and developments.
- Kbelicius 6y ago
  Do you have any resources that you could share on those behind-the-scene plans?

yokaze 6y ago

That's the point of doing it at EU level (and I think a contributing factor to Brexit): there is no party doing it, it is done via consensus on EU level. And on the local level, the politicians blame the EU for it.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
throwaway2245 6y ago
> And on the local level, the politicians blame the EU for it. Ultimately, local politicians are the EU's decision-makers. MEPs sit as members of national political parties; the European Council are heads of national governments. Passing the buck to the EU is a weak position, and in general a mistruth. There aren't many issues divides nations in the EU from each other - most, if not all, decisions that the EU takes have divisions within nations (between the political groups), not without (between national groups). You can argue that "blame the EU" is a position that the UK government has taken successfully - continually blaming the EU for any problems that they have created themselves (sometimes blaming the EU despite incompetently avoiding the EU's clear recommendations). But, now that the UK has left the EU, they don't have anyone left to blame for their own poor planning and decisions. We'll see how that pans out.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

Google is tricky, but I doubt Facebook will be missed much.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
Facebook the app, maybe not so much in Europe, but WhatsApp is pretty much the defacto cross platform messaging app here that everyone uses and also Facebook's Messenger app is used quite a lot for group chats where you don't have everyone's phone numbers.
joelbluminator 6y ago
Well lots of Europeans use Facebook. No one will die if you block it, but there will be somewhat of a void for many services people got used to which would be gone.

nicoburns 6y ago

Google would upset a lot of people, but I think quite a lot of people would be quite happy with a Facebook ban. Even quite heavy users of Facebook/Instagram seem to recognise the unhealthy effects it has on them. More likely the EU would negotiate with the companies rather than outright ban them.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hrktb 6y ago

Amazon got suspended for a while during COVID times, people weren't rioting in the streets over it (they were still rioting over other issues, just not Amazon)

nocturnial 6y ago

When the privacy commission in my country acted against facebook, it retaliated by issuing a country wide ban [1]. As far as I can tell, this had no noticable effect on the political parties. I think you are overestimating the power of large tech companies to influence foreign EU democracies. There are other examples, including one involving google, where they tried to block access to certain services and expected the population to blame their government. Unless you can give me a counter example, I think it's more likely people will blame the tech company. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/9c9bf084-994f-11e5-95c7-d47aa298f769 https://www.ft.com/content/9c9bf084-994f-11e5-95c7-d47aa298f...

cuban-frisbee 6y ago

It's not like the products will disappear. Rather they will likely be split into different companies that wields far less power. I highly doubt the average european consumer will care if whatsapp is its own company again or instagram for that matter. Likewise with the various google product groups.