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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 a

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.
leosarev 5y ago
> 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. There are pretty significant cohort in Russia that slaps our government for LinkedIn ban. For exact same reason.
spupe 5y ago
> 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. There are >400 million monthly active Facebook users in Europe today [1]. It is pretty absurd to think that a substantial amount of them would prefer losing access to Facebook over an EU mandate, especially considering most people are likely aware at this point that Facebook is using their data. I don't think this issue is as clear cut as you and many other posters here see it. I find that the EU's decision can overwhelm legitimate services that may not be able to comply with this regulation, and I also see it as part of their intention to build a China-like firewall eventually - they are already trying to shutdown Telegram, for example. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/745400/facebook-europe-mau-by-quarter/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/745400/facebook-europe-m...
- krageon 5y ago
  > especially considering most people are likely aware at this point that Facebook is using their data. I would contend most facebook users are not, as they are broadly either poorly informed or very old.
- herbst 5y ago
  When I tell people 'But Facebook is already breaking your privacy laws right now' I usually get something along 'then why does the EU not block it?' So imho this can not happen soon enough, people think the EU is actually protecting them when it isn't. I hope more countries join as well
  - spupe 5y ago
    And what percentage of those have abandoned or switched off from Facebook upon learning about their practices? I doubt a majority of Facebook users would agree with it being prevented from operating in European Union due to their servers being in the US. This is a precedent that can and will lead to undue internet restrictions in the future. So while I share your concern that we should do more regarding data protection, I'm not sure this is the way to go.
    - 5y ago
unlimit 5y ago
What if FB came up with this response based on the data from German and French users?
DocTomoe 5y ago
> I suspect that people would be split between (e) blame the local politicians for destroying their internet. Especially with the crowd that uses Instagram or Facebook, data protection laws are not something they consider, they want their little bubbles to continue working. Politicians risk alienating the young (who will most likely start sending their data to some Chinese company instead) and the mid-aged-to-elderly, low-educated, which is their main election pool.
23david 5y ago
This risk of losing business in the EU due to regulations around data is also acknowledged by google in their recent filing.. this isn’t specific to Meta despite all the articles that have popped up about it… https://twitter.com/SMalikjo/status/1490938883760033792?s=20&t=I1bCcRI3dKMRSQTVkayF8w https://twitter.com/SMalikjo/status/1490938883760033792?s=20... Their Q4 earnings had some conservative projections and higher expenses due to investments in building out their VR teams, and this was enough of a catalyst that the short sellers were able to create a panic. Fine to hate the company and management, and their politics, but following the money, this seems to be a wildly successful effort to manipulate sentiment and cause retail investors to panic and benefit short sellers in the market. There’s huge money to be made by hedge funds in shorting Meta on the way down, and then buying it again on the way up. Or maybe they’re really going down to $0 … which is more likely?
detaro 5y ago
Facebook isn't "playing games" that much IMHO, Facebook is merely trying to make sure it doesn't get sued by stockholders because it "hid material information from them". Thus, Facebook puts a worst-case scenario in their SEC filing so no stockholders can later sue them because "If I had known Facebook has regulatory issues in Europe I'd have invested differently! They didn't tell me, that's securities fraud!" (Cue Matt Levine on "everything is securities fraud") Of course it's a big claim, but I don't quite see why this is suddenly over all the media for such an obvious stock disclaimer.
viraptor 5y ago
> There are many alternatives that could fill their social media addictions. That's a very limited view on FB. Here are some uses I know of: - FB group where company directors meet discuss business issues - FB groups used for planning local sport/activity groups - FB Marketplace which displaced the original eBay concept where Gumtree is not popular - groups for organising conferences If you're looking at FB users and see only social media addicts, you're ignoring a large variety of users.
- jjulius 5y ago
  >FB group where company directors meet discuss business issues Forums >FB groups used for planning local sport/activity groups Forums >FB Marketplace which displaced the original eBay concept where Gumtree is not popular Craiglist >groups for organising conferences Forums
- em-bee 5y ago
  yes, but alternatives for those groups exist. the biggest pain is the necessary regrouping on a different service. this is not about the loss of functionality that doesn't exist elsewhere, compared to say something like google streetview which is rather unique
- lpcvoid 5y ago
  Moving those discussions into a searchable website/forum would benefit everybody.
5560675260 5y ago
Depends on how it's framed. Imagine something like "fuelled by nationalistic sentiment, German/French government makes unreasonable demands that would force social network to reengineer their networking solution at a massive cost". Personally I just don't see why an average user would care about FB not complying with this regulation. Once you type in your data into FB - FB has it, it really doesn't matter where FB's servers physically are, you're no longer in control. The only winning move is not to play, er, not to use social networks at all.

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.

leosarev 5y ago

> 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. There are pretty significant cohort in Russia that slaps our government for LinkedIn ban. For exact same reason.

spupe 5y ago

> 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. There are >400 million monthly active Facebook users in Europe today [1]. It is pretty absurd to think that a substantial amount of them would prefer losing access to Facebook over an EU mandate, especially considering most people are likely aware at this point that Facebook is using their data. I don't think this issue is as clear cut as you and many other posters here see it. I find that the EU's decision can overwhelm legitimate services that may not be able to comply with this regulation, and I also see it as part of their intention to build a China-like firewall eventually - they are already trying to shutdown Telegram, for example. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/745400/facebook-europe-mau-by-quarter/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/745400/facebook-europe-m...

krageon 5y ago
> especially considering most people are likely aware at this point that Facebook is using their data. I would contend most facebook users are not, as they are broadly either poorly informed or very old.
herbst 5y ago
When I tell people 'But Facebook is already breaking your privacy laws right now' I usually get something along 'then why does the EU not block it?' So imho this can not happen soon enough, people think the EU is actually protecting them when it isn't. I hope more countries join as well
- spupe 5y ago
  And what percentage of those have abandoned or switched off from Facebook upon learning about their practices? I doubt a majority of Facebook users would agree with it being prevented from operating in European Union due to their servers being in the US. This is a precedent that can and will lead to undue internet restrictions in the future. So while I share your concern that we should do more regarding data protection, I'm not sure this is the way to go.
  - 5y ago

unlimit 5y ago

What if FB came up with this response based on the data from German and French users?

DocTomoe 5y ago

> I suspect that people would be split between (e) blame the local politicians for destroying their internet. Especially with the crowd that uses Instagram or Facebook, data protection laws are not something they consider, they want their little bubbles to continue working. Politicians risk alienating the young (who will most likely start sending their data to some Chinese company instead) and the mid-aged-to-elderly, low-educated, which is their main election pool.

23david 5y ago

This risk of losing business in the EU due to regulations around data is also acknowledged by google in their recent filing.. this isn’t specific to Meta despite all the articles that have popped up about it… https://twitter.com/SMalikjo/status/1490938883760033792?s=20&t=I1bCcRI3dKMRSQTVkayF8w https://twitter.com/SMalikjo/status/1490938883760033792?s=20... Their Q4 earnings had some conservative projections and higher expenses due to investments in building out their VR teams, and this was enough of a catalyst that the short sellers were able to create a panic. Fine to hate the company and management, and their politics, but following the money, this seems to be a wildly successful effort to manipulate sentiment and cause retail investors to panic and benefit short sellers in the market. There’s huge money to be made by hedge funds in shorting Meta on the way down, and then buying it again on the way up. Or maybe they’re really going down to $0 … which is more likely?

detaro 5y ago

Facebook isn't "playing games" that much IMHO, Facebook is merely trying to make sure it doesn't get sued by stockholders because it "hid material information from them". Thus, Facebook puts a worst-case scenario in their SEC filing so no stockholders can later sue them because "If I had known Facebook has regulatory issues in Europe I'd have invested differently! They didn't tell me, that's securities fraud!" (Cue Matt Levine on "everything is securities fraud") Of course it's a big claim, but I don't quite see why this is suddenly over all the media for such an obvious stock disclaimer.

viraptor 5y ago

> There are many alternatives that could fill their social media addictions. That's a very limited view on FB. Here are some uses I know of: - FB group where company directors meet discuss business issues - FB groups used for planning local sport/activity groups - FB Marketplace which displaced the original eBay concept where Gumtree is not popular - groups for organising conferences If you're looking at FB users and see only social media addicts, you're ignoring a large variety of users.

jjulius 5y ago
>FB group where company directors meet discuss business issues Forums >FB groups used for planning local sport/activity groups Forums >FB Marketplace which displaced the original eBay concept where Gumtree is not popular Craiglist >groups for organising conferences Forums
em-bee 5y ago
yes, but alternatives for those groups exist. the biggest pain is the necessary regrouping on a different service. this is not about the loss of functionality that doesn't exist elsewhere, compared to say something like google streetview which is rather unique
lpcvoid 5y ago
Moving those discussions into a searchable website/forum would benefit everybody.

5560675260 5y ago

Depends on how it's framed. Imagine something like "fuelled by nationalistic sentiment, German/French government makes unreasonable demands that would force social network to reengineer their networking solution at a massive cost". Personally I just don't see why an average user would care about FB not complying with this regulation. Once you type in your data into FB - FB has it, it really doesn't matter where FB's servers physically are, you're no longer in control. The only winning move is not to play, er, not to use social networks at all.