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We’re Fine Without Facebook, German and French Ministers Say

148 points by caaqil 5y ago

globular-toast 5y ago
Did anyone else read this as: "We're fine without Facebook, German and French", ministers say?
rossdavidh 5y ago
If Google threatened to withdraw (which they're probably not foolish enough to do), the loss of things like Maps (that many other services depend on) and Gmail and Google Docs and etc. would worry most advanced economies. If Apple threatened to withdraw, it would not be as worrisome, but it would probably anger a lot of Apple fans. I feel like a significant chunk of FB users are only on it because they need to be in order to communicate with friends and family who stopped checking their email. Knowing that FB was not available in their country would make things simpler. FB is about as popular with their own users as, say, your average Big Tobacco company. They can't quit, but if it weren't available they would be better off after a couple weeks withdrawal.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- etempleton 5y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly. I think there would be people who were upset, but it would not be a material loss. Meta repeatedly overestimates the appeal of their products. If Microsoft, Apple, Google decided not to do business you would not only hear an outcry from users, it would in some cases be a material loss and make people's lives worse. I don't think you can say that about any of Meta's products. I quit using Facebook and Instagram years back and the next day was a better day.
- openknot 5y ago
  This analysis does not cover the importance of Facebook in i) Business pages that are easy to create and maintain for small, local business owners ii) Facebook events for listing information and keeping in touch with registered attendees, as well as event discovery for users iii) The importance for certain creators hosting their content and connecting with their user base on Instagram (assuming that would be also cancelled, as it is owned by Meta) iv) Controversial due to the privacy implications, but a lot of companies rely on paying for Facebook advertisements to survive (which is driving why Meta is valued so highly on the stock market). A tech-savvy user can create a website (or hire someone to); move to Eventbrite or equivalent; change photo-sharing apps to VSCO or equivalent; and back up their messages. But many people don't know these are even options, or lack the funds and technical skills to do this (because their specialties are in non-tech fields, for small business owners and people in certain creative fields). The bottom line is that Meta and its constituent of Facebook are valued highly for important use cases that can't be easily dismissed.
  - karmakaze 5y ago
    That's in the short-term. It could be disruptive in a negative way. There are probably already a number of EU companies in the space that could quickly be filling in these gaps. It would take some time to settle and have a dominant popular destination/network.
  - Rebelgecko 5y ago
    My understanding is that WhatsApp is also super popular in Europe.
    - commoner 5y ago
      WhatsApp is popular in Europe because of its network effects, not because of any unique features it may have. If it were made unavailable, users would switch to Signal, Telegram, or the European-developed Threema. Businesses would favor this change, since they would no longer have to pay WhatsApp for every conversation they initiate after exceeding their free tier.* * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29711001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29711001
      - tluyben2 5y ago
        Threema is a paid app though so that would not happen imho. For people who care somewhat less about end to end encryption, Telegram is by far the easiest: it just works, everywhere and you have all your data everywhere. I understand that it is a safety feature that it is hard to run the other ones smoothly (independent) on different devices while keeping your history but it is a huge annoyance: in whatsapp you cannot even switch android<>ios with history intact. Matrix (Element in my case) works a lot better with end to end encryption in tact and my history there on all devices but it sometimes 'lost keys' on one of them (? No idea what happens, I did report it) so I have to login again (which is a pita); that is better than the alternatives imho.
    - herbst 5y ago
      It depends on who you ask but Telegram and Signal are just as popular. Most people have more than 1 IM. It's been years when I couldn't contact someone because they just had WhatsApp. People who chat a lot use something different either way because WhatsApp lacks all the cool features.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  If Apple withdrew, there would simply be people buying their products abroad or via the black market. Hardware is pretty portable like that, unlike services. Even apps can be gotten if you just get gift cards for another country’s App Store. The Great Firewall of China is a perfect example of what happens when Google and Facebook aren’t allowed into a country. Alternatives that the government can better control fill the gap.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- commoner 5y ago
  > If Google threatened to withdraw (which they're probably not foolish enough to do), the loss of things like Maps (that many other services depend on) and Gmail and Google Docs and etc. would worry most advanced economies. It would inconvenience those who are using these Google services, but the services themselves are easily replaceable. Google Maps can be replaced with HERE Maps, which has a similar feature set. The absence of Google Maps would also accelerate contributions to OpenStreetMap and its ecosystem. Gmail and Google Docs have Zoho Mail and Zoho Docs as alternatives, as well as Microsoft's Outlook.com and Office 365. Nextcloud combined with Collabora Online or OnlyOffice also makes a fine FOSS substitute to Google Docs. Any worry would be in the short term, until companies make the transition to other solutions. I agree that the absence of Facebook would also not pose long-term issues, since users would simply migrate to other social media platforms and businesses would choose other forms of advertising.
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    Yeah, that's how I unplugged myself from Google totally. Gmail can be replaced with any paid or free mail service with IMAP.
    - backtoyoujim 5y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30051054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30051054 i thought that was just recent
  - DocTomoe 5y ago
    The availability of (often worse) alternatives does not mean a transition will not destroy billions of euros worth of effort and disruption of business processes. I am fairly sure the backlash to losing Google would be significant, even government-ending.
    - axiosgunnar 5y ago
      Should a single foreign for-profit megacorporation have that much power over our elected governments?
- hulitu 5y ago
  There are other maps programs, email providers and the G suite is a mess. Libre office is better.
anm89 5y ago
I'd really love to be a fly on the wall in the internal FB conversations on this one because from the outside it makes no sense. They are either unbelievably tone deaf and about to get themselves in serious trouble which feels unlikely given the amounts of money involved or they are playing some crazy chess game. Unbelievably the first feels more likely here. You'd have to assume at an organization the size of FB there are a couple of adults in the room but maybe none with enough sway to stop this slow motion train wreck?
- malermeister 5y ago
  Having worked at Facebook before, it's definitely the first. People and especially execs at Facebook are incredibly out of touch with how their product is perceived. I also know that the actual perception of Facebook in Europe is even worse than in the US, due to higher importance of privacy. They think everyone loves them and would hate to see them go, to the point where they might pressure their governments, when in reality most Europeans hate Facebook and would love to see them gone. The amount of hubris and ego-driven miscalculation is insane.
  - doktorhladnjak 5y ago
    "See? That's the thing with you plastics. You think everybody is in love with you when actually, everybody HATES you!" s/plastics/Facebook
jorgesborges 5y ago
This is beautiful. Can someone who understands what’s actually happening explain if this is just negotiation theatre? Meta is obviously bluffing and posturing right, and there’s no real likelihood they would extricate their platforms from Europe?
- durnygbur 5y ago
  This sounds completely different than it really is. Angloshpere eagerly picks up anti-Meta sentiment, but old Germans and French are so disconnected that social media and the entire internet thing are some kind of caprices for them. That's why they say they're fine without it. Private jet, high end Mercedes, yacht, villa on Capri, revolving door with the industry - this is their reality and internet is toothles there.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  given how easily they caved to the Australian government when the whole revenue sharing thing was going on I think the possibility of them leaving the 14 trillion dollar Eurozone economy approaches zero.
- detaro 5y ago
  It's stock market stuff. If there is no new EU-US privacy deal, that's likely going to cause some kind issues for Facebook. If that happens, some investor can sue Facebook for "you didn't tell us there was a risk you'd have problems in Europe!". Thus, Facebook does what any company is supposed to do: put the potential risks to their business in their SEC filings, so investors can read that, be happy and not pretend they were defrauded because they weren't told obvious things.
asdfafe 5y ago
what is facebook doing that other companies arent? anyone have a nonpaywalled article?
- webmobdev 5y ago
  “After being hacked I’ve lived without Facebook and Twitter for four years and life has been fantastic,” German Economy Minister Robert Habeck told reporters at an event alongside French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire in Paris on Monday. “I can confirm that life is very good without Facebook and that we would live very well without Facebook,” Le Maire added. “Digital giants must understand that the European continent will resist and affirm its sovereignty.” The pair were responding to comments in Meta’s annual report published Thursday, warning that if it couldn’t rely on new or existing agreements to shift data, then it would “likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe.” The European Union “is such a big internal market with so much economic power that if we act in unity we won’t be intimidated by something like this,” Habeck said. (That's the gist of it - Meta doesn't want to comply with EU's privacy and data protection laws).
- commoner 5y ago
  The sibling comment has 4 of the 6 paragraphs in the article. Here's an archive of the original: https://archive.fo/YRWuc https://archive.fo/YRWuc
rdtsc 5y ago
So am I. Have been just fine for many years. Never signed up for twitter, facebook, linkedin, instagram, whatsapp, tiktok, snapchat. Abandoned my reddit account years ago. I do have a github account, but that’s about it as far as “social” media goes. One day a cool enough new social media startup will appear, and I will sign up, I promise!
thaway2839 5y ago
I'm genuinely surprised Facebook is playing these games. This is disproportionately so much worse for Facebook, than it is for German/French users. 1) Let's assume that German/French users are absolutely shattered to lose Facebook. If they are that hurt, they will probably do at least a basic Google search to find out why they can't access FB anymore. And what they will find is that FB preferred cutting them out rather than not transferring their data to the US. I suspect that people would be split between (a) surprise that FB is storing their data, (b) surprise that FB has been sending their data to the US, (c) shocked that FB would choose to end operations than not send data to the US (which would immediately make them suspicious why they want to send data to the US), (d) have jingoistic anti-FB sentiments, etc. I can't see a significant cohort that would be unhappy that their governments stood the ground on their data not being sent to the US. Even if you don't understand why the governments did this, you'd be wondering what FB has to hide that they can't keep the data in France/Germany. 2) Many people may not see FB as such a huge loss. There are many alternatives that could fill their social media addictions. 3) If there isn't a huge outcry for FB, that would shatter the aura of invincibility FB currently holds in the social media space. That aura has already been marginally dented with their latest quarterly results, but to see FB completely disappear from the 2 biggest European economies and life continuing as basically normal will be a huge blow to FB. It will raise a whole lot of questions everywhere else. More authoritarian regimes will threaten to cut out FB if they don't help censor, etc. the way those regimes want them to. Privacy focused regimes would hold the threat of cutting out FB if it doesn't impose greater privacy protection. etc. I don't see how FB can win here besides France/Germany folding, which I seriously doubt will happen.
- fartcannon 5y ago
  I agree Facebook loses, but I think maybe we differ on how. For example, I have no confidence that humans would behave as logically as you do in your post. I'd expect them to fully blame the government for any number of reasons but primarily because they don't care about their data, and they now can't interact with their friends/memes as they did before. Even if you tried to explain, I don't think most people would care. That said I also think they'll forget about Facebook in a week or two and move to tiktok or where ever their friends/memes go. I'm being misanthropic but I really do think this is how it would go down.
fomine3 5y ago
Regardless of what we think about Facebook, the talk looks not good as a minister.
- zibzab 5y ago
  Speak for yourself mate. I like politicians with a real backbone :)
  - fomine3 5y ago
    I'm fine if it's "I'm fine", but it's "We're fine" according to this article title. I don't know what exactly said in Germany.
  - hk__2 5y ago
    To assess the backbone of a politician you need to look at their career choices, not just some random quote on some minor controversy.
durnygbur 5y ago
- herbst 5y ago
  They could merge their 3 TV stations doing the very same shit in 3 slightly different dialects to one and have some room left for extra costs.
  - durnygbur 5y ago
    They never ask for less, their job is to ask for more.
    - herbst 5y ago
      Maybe they should look into making a cobra 11 for each Bundesland individually then ;)
jd24 5y ago
I don't think FB would make a move like this without feeling somewhat confident. My guess is they're leaning into the effect it'll have on small businesses if they suddenly vanish from EU.
- zibzab 5y ago
  Those small businesses could also include digital businesses that FB is more or less killing. For example, Sweden has two digital markets. One was bought by eBay but the other one continued until FB introduced its own market which unlike this one is "free" and doesn't even require you to leave your filter bubble and log into a different site. If FB pulls out they will have a fighting chance to survive.
- aspyct 5y ago
  FB is at best a footgun when it comes to small businesses. Right now, if you don't exist on facebook, it's a bad hit to your sales. However, existing on facebook requires the goodwill of... well facebook. They can wipe you out of existence in a few clicks, just by deleting your page. It happened to me once. I was suddenly banned from posting ads on instagram. No explanation given. Then I appealed, and it was restored. Still no explanation given. Of course I stopped paying those <insert insulting word here> pigs. But still, the situation remains: you have to be on facebook, but they can unjustly dispose of you. Meta has a monopoly on communication channels. It's not better, it's just a monopoly. That needs to change.
zibzab 5y ago
I don't understand why everyone - including the normally thick-skinned and business-minded HN crowd - is buying into this fake protest. Facebook is simply trying to score some small victory out of a bad situation, probably a time extension or somewhat relaxed rules. The question is whether this will backfire when everyone else sees it as a real threat.
- durnygbur 5y ago
  It's a conflict between out of touch Meta executives with out of touch German and French politicians, entirely made up by media. Things are going well and smooth, money is flowing, the power is asserted, the stocks are going only up.
scim-knox-twox 5y ago
I'd really love to live in EU without GAFA… Good that finally it's breaks trough to the mainstream.
aspyct 5y ago
Question: what's the best way to show support for this kind of answer? Should I simply send them a mail saying "hey thanks"?
gumby 5y ago
This is an arrogant and naïve view by those two politicians — and by FB too. My FB feed is pretty equally split between English, French and German posts and comments. I know what’s up with my friends and their kids, pets, etc. I get a lot of jokes. People don’t want to lose that. FB is also being arrogant and if they really try to pull out yes, they will provoke a lot of unhappiness directed at the EU, but I do think quite a few — probably close to majority, will be upset that FB won’t protect their data. Sadly there is no European alternative to FB/IG, and not really WhatsApp. The EU politicians should stop them lazy sniping and attacking of FB and simply, quietly, and firmly insist that FB obey the (European) law. They would be more effective if they chose to speak softly and just keep a tight grip on the data protection stick.
twobitshifter 5y ago
> The pair were responding to comments in Meta’s annual report published Thursday, warning that if it couldn’t rely on new or existing agreements to shift data, then it would “likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe.” I don’t think they’re entirely bluffing, it may be they temporarily have no choice because this is a difficult technical problem with their existing code base. How do you store a global social graph and its associated content without having data cross borders? Even more so, how do you adapt an existing complex global social graph to respect borders? And how do you get Facebook to instantly load all the content from each of these segregated data stores?
- Hamuko 5y ago
  I have my doubts about Facebook's courage to shut down their services in Europe even temporarily, since that always comes with a risk of users switching to different services. I imagine they'd rather eat whatever fine the EU was going to throw at their direction than turn off service.
mrkramer 5y ago
Zuck won't shoot himself in the foot, he is just playing games with politicians at this point. And yea they said they would lost 25% of their revenue if they do it[0]. [0] https://www.trendingtopics.eu/meta-withdrawal-from-europe-would-cost-facebook-25-of-revenue/ https://www.trendingtopics.eu/meta-withdrawal-from-europe-wo...
- mrkramer 5y ago
  *they would lose
jordiburgos 5y ago
Big opportunity for an European Social Network to get all those users before Facebook closes in Europe. I would like to do it as a Software Engineer. Anyone wants to be in charge of the marketing?

148 points by caaqil 5y ago

Did anyone else read this as: "We're fine without Facebook, German and French", ministers say?

If Google threatened to withdraw (which they're probably not foolish enough to do), the loss of things like Maps (that many other services depend on) and Gmail and Google Docs and etc. would worry most advanced economies. If Apple threatened to withdraw, it would not be as worrisome, but it would probably anger a lot of Apple fans. I feel like a significant chunk of FB users are only on it because they need to be in order to communicate with friends and family who stopped checking their email. Knowing that FB was not available in their country would make things simpler. FB is about as popular with their own users as, say, your average Big Tobacco company. They can't quit, but if it weren't available they would be better off after a couple weeks withdrawal.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
etempleton 5y ago
I agree wholeheartedly. I think there would be people who were upset, but it would not be a material loss. Meta repeatedly overestimates the appeal of their products. If Microsoft, Apple, Google decided not to do business you would not only hear an outcry from users, it would in some cases be a material loss and make people's lives worse. I don't think you can say that about any of Meta's products. I quit using Facebook and Instagram years back and the next day was a better day.
openknot 5y ago
This analysis does not cover the importance of Facebook in i) Business pages that are easy to create and maintain for small, local business owners ii) Facebook events for listing information and keeping in touch with registered attendees, as well as event discovery for users iii) The importance for certain creators hosting their content and connecting with their user base on Instagram (assuming that would be also cancelled, as it is owned by Meta) iv) Controversial due to the privacy implications, but a lot of companies rely on paying for Facebook advertisements to survive (which is driving why Meta is valued so highly on the stock market). A tech-savvy user can create a website (or hire someone to); move to Eventbrite or equivalent; change photo-sharing apps to VSCO or equivalent; and back up their messages. But many people don't know these are even options, or lack the funds and technical skills to do this (because their specialties are in non-tech fields, for small business owners and people in certain creative fields). The bottom line is that Meta and its constituent of Facebook are valued highly for important use cases that can't be easily dismissed.
- karmakaze 5y ago
  That's in the short-term. It could be disruptive in a negative way. There are probably already a number of EU companies in the space that could quickly be filling in these gaps. It would take some time to settle and have a dominant popular destination/network.
- Rebelgecko 5y ago
  My understanding is that WhatsApp is also super popular in Europe.
  - commoner 5y ago
    WhatsApp is popular in Europe because of its network effects, not because of any unique features it may have. If it were made unavailable, users would switch to Signal, Telegram, or the European-developed Threema. Businesses would favor this change, since they would no longer have to pay WhatsApp for every conversation they initiate after exceeding their free tier.* * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29711001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29711001
    - tluyben2 5y ago
      Threema is a paid app though so that would not happen imho. For people who care somewhat less about end to end encryption, Telegram is by far the easiest: it just works, everywhere and you have all your data everywhere. I understand that it is a safety feature that it is hard to run the other ones smoothly (independent) on different devices while keeping your history but it is a huge annoyance: in whatsapp you cannot even switch android<>ios with history intact. Matrix (Element in my case) works a lot better with end to end encryption in tact and my history there on all devices but it sometimes 'lost keys' on one of them (? No idea what happens, I did report it) so I have to login again (which is a pita); that is better than the alternatives imho.
  - herbst 5y ago
    It depends on who you ask but Telegram and Signal are just as popular. Most people have more than 1 IM. It's been years when I couldn't contact someone because they just had WhatsApp. People who chat a lot use something different either way because WhatsApp lacks all the cool features.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
If Apple withdrew, there would simply be people buying their products abroad or via the black market. Hardware is pretty portable like that, unlike services. Even apps can be gotten if you just get gift cards for another country’s App Store. The Great Firewall of China is a perfect example of what happens when Google and Facebook aren’t allowed into a country. Alternatives that the government can better control fill the gap.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
commoner 5y ago
> If Google threatened to withdraw (which they're probably not foolish enough to do), the loss of things like Maps (that many other services depend on) and Gmail and Google Docs and etc. would worry most advanced economies. It would inconvenience those who are using these Google services, but the services themselves are easily replaceable. Google Maps can be replaced with HERE Maps, which has a similar feature set. The absence of Google Maps would also accelerate contributions to OpenStreetMap and its ecosystem. Gmail and Google Docs have Zoho Mail and Zoho Docs as alternatives, as well as Microsoft's Outlook.com and Office 365. Nextcloud combined with Collabora Online or OnlyOffice also makes a fine FOSS substitute to Google Docs. Any worry would be in the short term, until companies make the transition to other solutions. I agree that the absence of Facebook would also not pose long-term issues, since users would simply migrate to other social media platforms and businesses would choose other forms of advertising.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  Yeah, that's how I unplugged myself from Google totally. Gmail can be replaced with any paid or free mail service with IMAP.
  - backtoyoujim 5y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30051054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30051054 i thought that was just recent
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  The availability of (often worse) alternatives does not mean a transition will not destroy billions of euros worth of effort and disruption of business processes. I am fairly sure the backlash to losing Google would be significant, even government-ending.
  - axiosgunnar 5y ago
    Should a single foreign for-profit megacorporation have that much power over our elected governments?
hulitu 5y ago
There are other maps programs, email providers and the G suite is a mess. Libre office is better.

anm89 5y ago

I'd really love to be a fly on the wall in the internal FB conversations on this one because from the outside it makes no sense. They are either unbelievably tone deaf and about to get themselves in serious trouble which feels unlikely given the amounts of money involved or they are playing some crazy chess game. Unbelievably the first feels more likely here. You'd have to assume at an organization the size of FB there are a couple of adults in the room but maybe none with enough sway to stop this slow motion train wreck?

malermeister 5y ago
Having worked at Facebook before, it's definitely the first. People and especially execs at Facebook are incredibly out of touch with how their product is perceived. I also know that the actual perception of Facebook in Europe is even worse than in the US, due to higher importance of privacy. They think everyone loves them and would hate to see them go, to the point where they might pressure their governments, when in reality most Europeans hate Facebook and would love to see them gone. The amount of hubris and ego-driven miscalculation is insane.
- doktorhladnjak 5y ago
  "See? That's the thing with you plastics. You think everybody is in love with you when actually, everybody HATES you!" s/plastics/Facebook

jorgesborges 5y ago

This is beautiful. Can someone who understands what’s actually happening explain if this is just negotiation theatre? Meta is obviously bluffing and posturing right, and there’s no real likelihood they would extricate their platforms from Europe?

durnygbur 5y ago
This sounds completely different than it really is. Angloshpere eagerly picks up anti-Meta sentiment, but old Germans and French are so disconnected that social media and the entire internet thing are some kind of caprices for them. That's why they say they're fine without it. Private jet, high end Mercedes, yacht, villa on Capri, revolving door with the industry - this is their reality and internet is toothles there.
Barrin92 5y ago
given how easily they caved to the Australian government when the whole revenue sharing thing was going on I think the possibility of them leaving the 14 trillion dollar Eurozone economy approaches zero.
detaro 5y ago
It's stock market stuff. If there is no new EU-US privacy deal, that's likely going to cause some kind issues for Facebook. If that happens, some investor can sue Facebook for "you didn't tell us there was a risk you'd have problems in Europe!". Thus, Facebook does what any company is supposed to do: put the potential risks to their business in their SEC filings, so investors can read that, be happy and not pretend they were defrauded because they weren't told obvious things.

asdfafe 5y ago

what is facebook doing that other companies arent? anyone have a nonpaywalled article?

webmobdev 5y ago
“After being hacked I’ve lived without Facebook and Twitter for four years and life has been fantastic,” German Economy Minister Robert Habeck told reporters at an event alongside French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire in Paris on Monday. “I can confirm that life is very good without Facebook and that we would live very well without Facebook,” Le Maire added. “Digital giants must understand that the European continent will resist and affirm its sovereignty.” The pair were responding to comments in Meta’s annual report published Thursday, warning that if it couldn’t rely on new or existing agreements to shift data, then it would “likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe.” The European Union “is such a big internal market with so much economic power that if we act in unity we won’t be intimidated by something like this,” Habeck said. (That's the gist of it - Meta doesn't want to comply with EU's privacy and data protection laws).
commoner 5y ago
The sibling comment has 4 of the 6 paragraphs in the article. Here's an archive of the original: https://archive.fo/YRWuc https://archive.fo/YRWuc

rdtsc 5y ago

So am I. Have been just fine for many years. Never signed up for twitter, facebook, linkedin, instagram, whatsapp, tiktok, snapchat. Abandoned my reddit account years ago. I do have a github account, but that’s about it as far as “social” media goes. One day a cool enough new social media startup will appear, and I will sign up, I promise!

thaway2839 5y ago

I'm genuinely surprised Facebook is playing these games. This is disproportionately so much worse for Facebook, than it is for German/French users. 1) Let's assume that German/French users are absolutely shattered to lose Facebook. If they are that hurt, they will probably do at least a basic Google search to find out why they can't access FB anymore. And what they will find is that FB preferred cutting them out rather than not transferring their data to the US. I suspect that people would be split between (a) surprise that FB is storing their data, (b) surprise that FB has been sending their data to the US, (c) shocked that FB would choose to end operations than not send data to the US (which would immediately make them suspicious why they want to send data to the US), (d) have jingoistic anti-FB sentiments, etc. I can't see a significant cohort that would be unhappy that their governments stood the ground on their data not being sent to the US. Even if you don't understand why the governments did this, you'd be wondering what FB has to hide that they can't keep the data in France/Germany. 2) Many people may not see FB as such a huge loss. There are many alternatives that could fill their social media addictions. 3) If there isn't a huge outcry for FB, that would shatter the aura of invincibility FB currently holds in the social media space. That aura has already been marginally dented with their latest quarterly results, but to see FB completely disappear from the 2 biggest European economies and life continuing as basically normal will be a huge blow to FB. It will raise a whole lot of questions everywhere else. More authoritarian regimes will threaten to cut out FB if they don't help censor, etc. the way those regimes want them to. Privacy focused regimes would hold the threat of cutting out FB if it doesn't impose greater privacy protection. etc. I don't see how FB can win here besides France/Germany folding, which I seriously doubt will happen.

fartcannon 5y ago
I agree Facebook loses, but I think maybe we differ on how. For example, I have no confidence that humans would behave as logically as you do in your post. I'd expect them to fully blame the government for any number of reasons but primarily because they don't care about their data, and they now can't interact with their friends/memes as they did before. Even if you tried to explain, I don't think most people would care. That said I also think they'll forget about Facebook in a week or two and move to tiktok or where ever their friends/memes go. I'm being misanthropic but I really do think this is how it would go down.

fomine3 5y ago

Regardless of what we think about Facebook, the talk looks not good as a minister.

zibzab 5y ago
Speak for yourself mate. I like politicians with a real backbone :)
- fomine3 5y ago
  I'm fine if it's "I'm fine", but it's "We're fine" according to this article title. I don't know what exactly said in Germany.
- hk__2 5y ago
  To assess the backbone of a politician you need to look at their career choices, not just some random quote on some minor controversy.

durnygbur 5y ago

herbst 5y ago
They could merge their 3 TV stations doing the very same shit in 3 slightly different dialects to one and have some room left for extra costs.
- durnygbur 5y ago
  They never ask for less, their job is to ask for more.
  - herbst 5y ago
    Maybe they should look into making a cobra 11 for each Bundesland individually then ;)

jd24 5y ago

I don't think FB would make a move like this without feeling somewhat confident. My guess is they're leaning into the effect it'll have on small businesses if they suddenly vanish from EU.

zibzab 5y ago
Those small businesses could also include digital businesses that FB is more or less killing. For example, Sweden has two digital markets. One was bought by eBay but the other one continued until FB introduced its own market which unlike this one is "free" and doesn't even require you to leave your filter bubble and log into a different site. If FB pulls out they will have a fighting chance to survive.
aspyct 5y ago
FB is at best a footgun when it comes to small businesses. Right now, if you don't exist on facebook, it's a bad hit to your sales. However, existing on facebook requires the goodwill of... well facebook. They can wipe you out of existence in a few clicks, just by deleting your page. It happened to me once. I was suddenly banned from posting ads on instagram. No explanation given. Then I appealed, and it was restored. Still no explanation given. Of course I stopped paying those <insert insulting word here> pigs. But still, the situation remains: you have to be on facebook, but they can unjustly dispose of you. Meta has a monopoly on communication channels. It's not better, it's just a monopoly. That needs to change.

zibzab 5y ago

I don't understand why everyone - including the normally thick-skinned and business-minded HN crowd - is buying into this fake protest. Facebook is simply trying to score some small victory out of a bad situation, probably a time extension or somewhat relaxed rules. The question is whether this will backfire when everyone else sees it as a real threat.

durnygbur 5y ago
It's a conflict between out of touch Meta executives with out of touch German and French politicians, entirely made up by media. Things are going well and smooth, money is flowing, the power is asserted, the stocks are going only up.

scim-knox-twox 5y ago

I'd really love to live in EU without GAFA… Good that finally it's breaks trough to the mainstream.

aspyct 5y ago

Question: what's the best way to show support for this kind of answer? Should I simply send them a mail saying "hey thanks"?

gumby 5y ago

This is an arrogant and naïve view by those two politicians — and by FB too. My FB feed is pretty equally split between English, French and German posts and comments. I know what’s up with my friends and their kids, pets, etc. I get a lot of jokes. People don’t want to lose that. FB is also being arrogant and if they really try to pull out yes, they will provoke a lot of unhappiness directed at the EU, but I do think quite a few — probably close to majority, will be upset that FB won’t protect their data. Sadly there is no European alternative to FB/IG, and not really WhatsApp. The EU politicians should stop them lazy sniping and attacking of FB and simply, quietly, and firmly insist that FB obey the (European) law. They would be more effective if they chose to speak softly and just keep a tight grip on the data protection stick.

twobitshifter 5y ago

> The pair were responding to comments in Meta’s annual report published Thursday, warning that if it couldn’t rely on new or existing agreements to shift data, then it would “likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe.” I don’t think they’re entirely bluffing, it may be they temporarily have no choice because this is a difficult technical problem with their existing code base. How do you store a global social graph and its associated content without having data cross borders? Even more so, how do you adapt an existing complex global social graph to respect borders? And how do you get Facebook to instantly load all the content from each of these segregated data stores?

Hamuko 5y ago
I have my doubts about Facebook's courage to shut down their services in Europe even temporarily, since that always comes with a risk of users switching to different services. I imagine they'd rather eat whatever fine the EU was going to throw at their direction than turn off service.

mrkramer 5y ago

Zuck won't shoot himself in the foot, he is just playing games with politicians at this point. And yea they said they would lost 25% of their revenue if they do it[0]. [0] https://www.trendingtopics.eu/meta-withdrawal-from-europe-would-cost-facebook-25-of-revenue/ https://www.trendingtopics.eu/meta-withdrawal-from-europe-wo...

mrkramer 5y ago
*they would lose

jordiburgos 5y ago

Big opportunity for an European Social Network to get all those users before Facebook closes in Europe. I would like to do it as a Software Engineer. Anyone wants to be in charge of the marketing?