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Meta threatens to shut down Facebook and Instagram in Europe
- wcoenen 5y agoPreviously discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30234026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30234026 (which also links to an article with a more professional tone than Mashable)
- plankers 5y agonot to rain on the parade, but this has already been posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30234444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30234444 ah screw it. these guys suck, keep ripping on 'em.
- blitzar 5y agoI call your bluff Meta, and raise you pay some tax as well.
- ssss11 5y agoThat’ll do their share price alot of good!
- M_Moonshine_cc 5y agoAnd off they go and will not be missed!
- bhub 5y agoCould be nice for most individuals but I see the point about businesses. Especially smaller ones. Personally I would love to be able to see business opening hours without having to log I to Facebook, but it’s a “free” place to run your business site from.
- kvakvs 5y agoGoogle Maps, click business name, see opening hours. Only businesses that matter. Online-only businesses should have hours published on their web page.
- fabioborellini 5y agoYou mean the same google maps that claims that outdoor trails and statues have been closed for business since 2020? It’s completely unreliable in some markets
- bryanrasmussen 5y agoWhat I find interesting here is it reminds me of MS at the height of anti-MS sentiment where they would release statements that sounded like, frankly, they don't understand how much they are hated or they wouldn't be giving everyone such easy ammunition to load.
- bb88 5y agoIf I were Europe and this were a poker game, I would call Meta's bluff.
- guiriduro 5y agoAnd hope they weren't bluffing (not from the slightest worry over the absence of these services, which would be a boon, rather their continuance despite being called and need to waste time regulating them.)
- bb88 5y agoIf your annoying in-law threatens to move out of the house, bet that he won't. In either case it's a win.
- baal80spam 5y agoFor the record - I don't have and never have had a FB account, but - do "ordinary people" (who are a vast majority of users) really hate Facebook? I feel like it's bit of a echo chamber and most people don't really care.
- jll29 5y agoWe don't need Facebook in Europe, we prefer to visit our friends in person to talk to them without surveillance capitalism.
- bb88 5y agoThe real title of the story is: "Americans, get jealous: Meta threatens to shut down Facebook and Instagram in Europe OK, do the U.S. now!"
- creshal 5y agoDon't threaten us with a good time.
- parski 5y ago"Oh no!"
- nairboon 5y agoIs it even a threat, if no one is afraid?
- signa11 5y agois it possible that if they go through with it, it might open up the entire continent to an alternate / competitor, which can then threaten them globally ? thinking a bit more, it seems that there might be a fine acceptable line of action between the scylla of share everything (which mean no privacy) and charybdis of share nothing (which means no internet), and it might (unfortunately !) be upto the politicians to draw it...
- yreg 5y agoThis seems like a very strange thing for them to say. I can imagine if Microsoft, Google or Amazon threatened to stop offering services EU might at least care since their services would be missed, at least short term. (Although the threat would be obviously just as empty as Meta's.) I don't see why should our regulators care at all to keep Meta here though.
- mschuster91 5y ago> I don't see why should our regulators care at all to keep Meta here though. Because there are an awful lot of small businesses that sell almost exclusively through Facebook, and the major industries of Europe (i.e. the car manufacturers) which conveniently are major donors to the political parties depend on social media for their marketing as classic ATL advertising spend is going back. Not to mention Instagram "influencers" - a couple of them have millions of followers. What do you think will happen when even one tells their followers to blast the offices of politicians with calls and letters? Not that I like Meta, their products and their attitude towards privacy very much, but using the "Scientology method" may get them their will in the end.
- logical_ferry 5y ago>What do you think will happen when even one tells their followers to blast the offices of politicians with calls and letters? Probably nothing, they will go to spam folder. At least that's how democracy works in my country.
- bb88 5y agoI was hoping the adults in the room would tell the influencers to do something productive with their lives rather than stoke the social fears of the teenagers that follow them.
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago> Not to mention Instagram "influencers" - a couple of them have millions of followers. What do you think will happen when even one tells their followers to blast the offices of politicians with calls and letters? Nothing? Maybe a change.org petition at most? Facebook may have shot themselves in the foot by turning their services into pacifiers for adults.
- atoav 5y agoAs a EU citizen this would roughly be the best thing that could happen in terms of Facebook/Instagram. And I say that although I use instagram.
- sillysaurusx 5y agoJeez, HN is vicious. Reminds me of the two minutes hate. Who would’ve guessed it’d be for a company and not a person? We even have the tribalism thing going on where if you think Facebook is fine, you’re a suspicious outsider. It’s one of the most popular services in the world. I guarantee you society would react strongly to the sudden absence of it, no matter how much you wouldn’t. We are all outliers. And that doesn’t make us better.
- bb88 5y agoWhat? You wanna have a discussion about what FB did to the world? FB's actions are way more heinous than what any forum post would be.
- sillysaurusx 5y agoSo? People are acting like shutting it down has zero consequences. That's crazy.
- bb88 5y agoI still fail to see said consequences. All I see are consequences of FB's continued existence. There's a quote I heard recently you may enjoy when one of the conservatives told off PM Johnson. "You've sat there too long for all the good that you've done. In the name of God, go."
- sillysaurusx 5y agoNow that the thread is wiped, want to talk more about those consequences? May as well be candid. I think there would be a relatively violent (in online terms, not literally) reaction as people try to figure out where to go. Not only would Facebook not go away, but even if they did, the replacement wouldn’t be better.
- bb88 5y agoSure, let's start with the testimony of whistle blower Frances Haugen: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/10/05/technology/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/10/05/technology/facebook-... There's a lot to unpack, but the NYTimes does a pretty good job of it. Then there's the ugliness of Rohingya: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-sue-facebook-myanmar-genocide-us-uk-legal-action-social-media-violence https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-... Then there's the ugliness of Russian Trolls. https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook-troll-farms-report-us-2020-election/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook... Then there's the whole if you're not paying for a product, then you are the product. https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/facebook-10-billion-apple-privacy-push https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/facebook-10-billion-appl... There was cambridge analytica: https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/25/facebook-ignored-staff-warnings-about-sketchy-cambridge-analytica-in-september-2015/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/25/facebook-ignored-staff-war... There was the Iranian Trolls: https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-twitter-eye-iran-fake-account-crackdown/ https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-twitter-eye-iran-fake-a... Then there's the NFT crap they're pushing: https://www.ft.com/content/2745d50b-36e4-4c0a-abe0-e93f035b0628 https://www.ft.com/content/2745d50b-36e4-4c0a-abe0-e93f035b0... FB Misled Congress in their role in the insurrection: https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/22/business/january-6-insurrection-facebook-papers/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/22/business/january-6-insurrecti... FB treated celebrities one way and regular people another https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-files-xcheck-zuckerberg-elite-rules-11631541353?mod=article_inline https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-files-xcheck-zuckerber... When employees approached Mark Zuckerberg the algorithm was making people angrier, he refused to make changes because engagement was critical above all else. https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-algorithm-change-zuckerberg-11631654215?mod=article_inline https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-algorithm-change-zucke... When employees alerted management about human trafficking, FB did little or nothing to stop it. https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-drug-cartels-human-traffickers-response-is-weak-documents-11631812953?mod=article_inline https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-drug-cartels-human-tra... FB explored ways to get pre-teens hooked on the platform. https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-instagram-kids-tweens-attract-11632849667?mod=article_inline https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-instagram-kids-tweens-... Finally: here's a good article about FB. They shut down the facial recognition software after China used it to identify the Uyghurs from their population. US law enforcement used it to arrest people who just looked like the people they were going after. Still bad, but you know it only took 10 years of complaining about it. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/technology/facebook-facial-recognition.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/technology/facebook-facia... And I'm pretty sure there's maybe at least another 2x of where that came from. Edited to add: > Not only would Facebook not go away, but even if they did, the replacement wouldn’t be better. This is not a perfect analogy, but hopefully you get the point. If you clean up trash in your town, does that mean the trash that replaces it is worse? No. It's just more of the regular old trash. But the question is, what signal does it send to those that want to dump blocks worth of trash in your town if you don't clean up the trash in your town?
- sAbakumoff 5y agoGood news. Perhaps I can return the shitty oculus thing. It's more useless than a bag of dicks without a handle.
- xtanx 5y agoObvious bluff.
- mrweasel 5y agoAs others have pointed out, this isn't a real threat. There is no way Meta would allow competitors to have a market of 500 million Europeans for themselves. If the "threat" is something Meta is required to write in their SEC reports, because EU regulations might be an issue for their profitability, then it's a little weird that they don't have to specify that pulling out of Europe might be an even greater threat.
- shafyy 5y agoWell, they are already not selling the Quest 2 in Germany because of privacy reasons. I'm aware that the ad revenue they make in EU is several orders of magnitude larger than what they would make with the Quest 2. However, Germany for sure is (relatively seen) an important market for the Quest 2. Still, I don't believe that they will follow through with this "threat" (even though I would welcome it).
- qnsi 5y agoPeople writing in this thread that FB won't be missed - yeah it won't be missed by average HN user who doesn't use FB. Meanwhile all my friends use Instagram stories, communicate on FB messenger, browse local events on FB events, we don't have good reddit clone in my country so a lot of discussions happen in FB groups. FB leaving EU would be felt by many. There would be room for a quick copycats, but probably the experience would be subpar without ads cashcow.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ralfn 5y agoFB didn't invent the internet, they are just trying to colonize it, so they can charge rent on the labour of others. We had chat, messaging, pages. All decentralized. No ads. Just worked. Jabber, email, etc. FB is a national security issue. If you love your country, you pray or fight for the ban of anything Mark touches.
- ajuc 5y agoWe even had facebook before facebook in many countries. In Poland - grono.net and then nasza-klasa. They weren't better, but at least they weren't worldwide monopolies.
- niemandhier 5y ago1. There would be cash flow, the data just would need to stay in Europe. 2. Metas biggest advantage is the fact that social media are a natural monopoly in the sense that you really want to be in the same social network as everybody else. Hence the largest must win. If meta were to leave Europe, there would be a short phase in which there would be several aspiring alternatives, than the market would consolidate.
- gspr 5y agoAll because FB happens to be there, and happens to be popular within some groups. If it disappeared, however, it would quickly be replaced. The only value it brings is "being popular".
- gregdoesit 5y agoThis reads less of a threat from Meta, and more of outlining all possible outcomes in an annual report - one they have to do, else risk shareholders suing, and winning, in the extremely unlikely case they would restrict some of their product offering in Europe as a flex. This is similar to how, if you read S1 filings, they will list all possible things that could go wrong, and ways the business can stumble, for the same reason. Meta is reasoning how they would be unable to do cross-region ad targeting with the current regulation. None of what they write has anything to with Instagram or Facebook's ability to operate. It all has to do with how accurate and profitable Facebooks' cross-region ad targeting would be. An underlying story not reported by Mashable is how the increasingly restrictive EU regulations do, in fact, present more cost and headaches for all companies operating globally. For any small and medium-sized business, it's increasingly not economical to implement adhering to regulations themselves: and it increasingly makes sense to use middlemen who provide these services - from payments processing to user data storage. It feels we're entering a time when operating globally will mean investing resources and custom development to operate within the regulations in the EU, in India (also pushing for more EU-style regulations) and in China (a different beast altogether). The regions who have not yet implemented similar regulations and are more of an "operate however you want" model are the US, Canada, LatAm and Africa.
- hrbf 5y agoPrecisely. It’s about managing investor expectations. They will never leave the European market and therefore lots of money on the table. They do feel the effects of privacy laws and tracking prevention though. It further betrays the entitled arrogance of exclusively ad-run businesses. It’s still profitable, just not as profitable as before.
- Isinlor 5y agoIt's actually USA law that is the problem here. Specifically, the fact that USA agencies can do whatever they want whenever they want with EU citizens data and have 0 accountability to EU citizens. Basically, we have as much rights as USA intended for terrorists. We had "Privacy Shield" framework that was allowing to transfer data to USA, but the framework (and the one before that) was invalidated by the European Court of Justice in Schrems II ruling due to lack of protections for EU citizens in USA law.
- crocwrestler 5y agoI would miss Meta as I use messenger frequently and greatly enjoy using my oculus/meta quest 2.
- tjpnz 5y ago>Meta says the ability to process user data in between countries is crucial for its business both operationally and for ad targeting And yet there's Amazon Japan.
- ajuc 5y agoGood riddance. Yes, some things depend on facebook. In vast majority of cases they really shouldn't. Facebook, Google, Amazon, all these companies can only get away with their worldwide monopolies for so long. Eventually they will get regulated. It's a good thing.
- ummonk 5y agoI shouldn't but I continue to be surprised by the levels of clickbait and lies that journalists will stoop to. Rather ridiculous to pretend a typical disclosure of risks to investors actually constitutes a threat.
- lukevdp 5y agoNot sure why this is getting downvoted, because it is 100% correct - the statement is a risk disclosure, not a threat
- thatgerhard 5y agoPlease do, that will help getting rid of it completely in the future..
- pmontra 5y agoYes please, it's going to be good for the mental health of a lot of people. We'll find new ways of communicating, people always did. In five years we'll be like "do you remember when we had Facebook? How could we do [something new I can't foresee] back then?"
- jsnell 5y agoAlready discussed extensively in the past few days: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30207734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30207734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30234026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30234026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30234444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30234444
- efficientsticks 5y agoThat would lead to a huge influx in money from VCs wanting to fill the vacuum and jobs as advertisers suddenly have a harder, less scalable job to get an outreach. European countries can and should take them up on that. Thanks to GDPR people can export their data to a new network pretty easily, but I expect most won’t even care/expect to keep the old data.
- codeflow2202 5y agoI hate FB as anyone else here, but I'd be worried of whatever will take its place. All this anti Meta sentiment is only helping even worse competitors like Tiktok to grow. And to be fair I have the feeling that this anti FB campaign that has been going on for years is probably well funded and orchestrated by some competing interest.
- zwirbl 5y agoHow is TikTok even worse than FB?
- alkonaut 5y agoSimilar business model but Chinese?
- codeflow2202 5y agoRight, I would also add that being fine-tuned to manipulate the younger generations is also a big minus.
- blitzar 5y agoAre we talking about facebook or tiktok here?
- codeflow2202 5y agoI guess this is disputable, but my point would be that the whole model should be taken down, not just its main representative.
- alkonaut 5y agoOh no! Anyway… I hope they do. It should send a pretty obvious message that it’s hard to operate a business trading in user data. And it should be. I wish some official would come out saying what we are all thinking: “is that a promise? Is there anything we can to to expedite this?”
- Mandatum 5y agoEurope: did I stutter
- ploppyploppy 5y agoOh please do. We can collectively have our mental health back from this contagion. Thanks!
- edanm 5y ago> To which we as Americans can only say: Luckyyyyyyyyyy!!!! I cannot believe the arrogance and insensitivity of this article, not to mention many other HN'ers in this thread, who cannot seem to understand that what they like and what other people like aren't the same thing. Millions of people happily use Facebook and Instagram every day, myself included. The fact that you don't use it is not a reason to think down on the people who do, or to wish that something that they like would no longer be available to them. The lack of empathy towards other people on display here is ridiculos.
- enriquto 5y agoGreat! Can't they do Whatsapp as well?
- znpy 5y agoI hope they do.
- peter-m80 5y agoI wish meta dissapears from EU