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> The EU fines could stoke tensions with U.S President Donald Trump who has threatened to levy tariffs against countries that penalise U.S. companies. Mark Zuc

> The EU fines could stoke tensions with U.S President Donald Trump who has threatened to levy tariffs against countries that penalise U.S. companies. Mark Zuckerberg, in his appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast, specifically noted this as his goal for falling in behind Trump. That Trump would be the big-stick man that would protect Meta and other cos from foreign interference. Where "interference" is anything restricting that American exceptionalism "do anything we want, however we want". Only then Trump started a trade war with quite literally the entire world -- aside from, predictably, Russia -- and now he holds, as he likes to say, no cards. The EU and anyone else can do whatever they want and Zuck and co can cry about the millions they wasted trying to buy a protection racket. Of course Meta could just withdrawn from the EU. I wish they would withdraw from Canada. Their garbage misinformation platform is a massive net negative for humanity and has offered nothing but harm for the planet.

xvector 2y ago
Most Canadian small businesses rely on Meta to get customers. If you think these companies don't add value, you are totally oblivious to the millions of small businesses that rely on these platforms to reach customers and niche audiences around the world.
- pjc50 2y ago
  They need a platform, but it doesn't have to be Meta.
- llm_nerd 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - llm_nerd 2y ago
      What is ugly or uncivil about noting someone's biases? The "your small businesses would fail without Meta" line is from the official lobbyist arm of Meta, and it's usually a pretty good tell that someone is a Meta employee and is thus likely to have a very rose coloured, idealized version of the org.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - carlosjobim 2y ago
        What do you achieve with that? Isn't it better to argue against the points made rather than argue against the person making them? Anybody could have made the same points.
      - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
        Full disclosure: I worked at Facebook from 2013 to 2018, almost entirely on ads. Like, you may not want to hear this, but lots of SMBs get value from targeted ads, and this has lead to lots and lots of successful businesses. I encourage my wife to use these kinds of ads (mostly on TikTok and IG these days) for her business, and they work reasonably well. That's not to say that Facebook hasn't had a bunch of bad impacts on the world (Myanmar and other poorer countries come to mind), but the OP's point is a good one, and lots of people who don't work at Meta believe this. Ultimately, Facebook provide a service that it appears lots of people like (I do use Whatsapp but not really the rest of them) and it's not up to you to determine whether or not they've been good or bad for society. As I keep bringing up in these discussions, should we ban radios for their role in the Rwandan genocide? Changing forms of communication are always going to cause societal changes, and we're currently living through the biggest one since the invention of the printing press. I'm not sure one can blame just one company for all of this, and honestly if you had to pick one I'd probably pick Google for making it profitable to write garbage and monetise through ads (but as I said, the Internet and computer mediated communication are a huge change and it's basically impossible to say what actually drove the changes).
  - xvector 2y ago
    I've worked at most FAANG companies, including Google, Apple, and Meta in the past (not currently). In my experience working at these companies and diving into the reported incidents/issues (e.g. Batterygate, Myanmar, Cambridge Analytica), I have found that comments like yours present an overly reductive worldview. You are likely entirely informed by ragebait news articles that grossly misrepresent the issues as opposed to a nuanced understanding of (1) the widely reported incidents, and (2) the services these companies provide and those that rely on them to make a living. No, it would not be replaced "in an instant" with other options, and any other options would quickly evolve into the same state as FB/IG today unless you make targeted ads illegal (which - again - would collapse millions of small businesses and centralize power for wealthy large businesses).
    - nottorp 2y ago
      > would collapse millions of small businesses How? And do they have the right to exist if their only income is targeted ads?
      - xvector 2y ago
        How do you expect small businesses to acquire customers? Spending tens of millions of dollars competing in generalized ad space to reach the same audience they can reach today with $1000? Most small businesses that exist today would become nonviable overnight, and that is a huge chunk of the economy. Sure, you can say "they shouldn't have the right to exist" because they use targeted ads, but I have yet to hear a solid argument for why such ads are an infringement on our fundamental rights such that the whole SMB segment of the economy is worth destroying.
        nottorp 2y ago
        Let me guess, there were no small businesses in the whole world before the advent of digital automated targeted ads?
        xvector 2y ago
  - alex1138 2y ago
    I've seen too much from the last few years (covid, mostly, but other things) to take much stock in what people are commonly referring to as misinformation But yeah, I don't like what they do competition wise (Whatsapp seems like clear antitrust) and their products are badly designed (have more things shoved into your feed that you're not following!)
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- tonyedgecombe 2y ago
  Yeah, because small businesses didn't exist before Facebook arrived.
lores 2y ago
Someone here hazarded the hypothesis that Trump's tariffs are a stick aimed not towards other countries, but towards American corporations, who have to pledge fealty (and resources) to Trump in exchange for relief. I think it makes a lot of sense, if any of this is rational, which I'm not entirely sold on.
- blitzar 2y ago
  You gotta kick back to the big guy.
- piltdownman 2y ago
  Look at 47's truth social some time. In between the posts 'destroying' liberals and lionising the worst actors in his party, he posts up a disturbing amount of 'settlements' with Law Firms that previously displeased him. They were basically forced at gunpoint to make deals to provide pro bono services to the Trump administration, in return for regulators dropping investigations into their diversity practices. The firms - including Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Allen Overy Shearman Sterling, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft – are among the most prestigious and recognized firms in the US. Cadwalader is the former firm of Todd Blanche, who resigned his partnership there to represent Trump in criminal cases when the firm would not take on Trump as a client. Blanche is now the deputy attorney general – the number two official at the Department of Justice. Overall the MAGA cabinet has now secured more than $900m in pro bono pledges from law firms threatened with either executive orders or investigations from the equal opportunity commission. How this isn't seen as a straight up RICO case or old-fashioned criminal shakedown is beyond me.
- paxys 2y ago
  It's always funny when shit happens and everyone jumps over themselves to figure out what "5D chess" the people in charge are playing. There's never any chess. They are just incompetent.
  - lores 2y ago
    That's not 5D chess at all. Very straightforward, in fact, and backed up by the documented strong-arming of law firms.
rsynnott 2y ago
> Of course Meta could just withdrawn from the EU. I mean, probably not without being sued by their shareholders. As a public company, you cannot simply abandon 40bn revenue/year because you feel aggrieved. But yeah, the "you'd better be nice to us, EC, or Trump might be angry" tactic is kinda shot at this point.
- barbazoo 2y ago
  > I mean, probably not without being sued by their shareholders. As a public company, you cannot simply abandon 40bn revenue/year because you feel aggrieved. What are the laws that Meta would be violating?
  - tonyedgecombe 2y ago
    >As a public company, you cannot simply abandon 40bn revenue/year because you feel aggrieved. The fines need to get bigger then.
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    Fiduciary duty. It's a high bar, but "we abandoned 25% of our revenue in a fit of pique over our being required to follow the law on consent" probably gets you there.
    - barbazoo 2y ago
      That gets thrown around a lot but those folks are masters at corporate messaging. All you need to do is tie a bow and back the decision up with a long term strategy. I don't accept "fiduciary duty" being the pretext for any shitty behavior.

xvector 2y ago

Most Canadian small businesses rely on Meta to get customers. If you think these companies don't add value, you are totally oblivious to the millions of small businesses that rely on these platforms to reach customers and niche audiences around the world.

pjc50 2y ago
They need a platform, but it doesn't have to be Meta.
llm_nerd 2y ago
[flagged]
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - llm_nerd 2y ago
    What is ugly or uncivil about noting someone's biases? The "your small businesses would fail without Meta" line is from the official lobbyist arm of Meta, and it's usually a pretty good tell that someone is a Meta employee and is thus likely to have a very rose coloured, idealized version of the org.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      What do you achieve with that? Isn't it better to argue against the points made rather than argue against the person making them? Anybody could have made the same points.
    - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
      Full disclosure: I worked at Facebook from 2013 to 2018, almost entirely on ads. Like, you may not want to hear this, but lots of SMBs get value from targeted ads, and this has lead to lots and lots of successful businesses. I encourage my wife to use these kinds of ads (mostly on TikTok and IG these days) for her business, and they work reasonably well. That's not to say that Facebook hasn't had a bunch of bad impacts on the world (Myanmar and other poorer countries come to mind), but the OP's point is a good one, and lots of people who don't work at Meta believe this. Ultimately, Facebook provide a service that it appears lots of people like (I do use Whatsapp but not really the rest of them) and it's not up to you to determine whether or not they've been good or bad for society. As I keep bringing up in these discussions, should we ban radios for their role in the Rwandan genocide? Changing forms of communication are always going to cause societal changes, and we're currently living through the biggest one since the invention of the printing press. I'm not sure one can blame just one company for all of this, and honestly if you had to pick one I'd probably pick Google for making it profitable to write garbage and monetise through ads (but as I said, the Internet and computer mediated communication are a huge change and it's basically impossible to say what actually drove the changes).
- xvector 2y ago
  I've worked at most FAANG companies, including Google, Apple, and Meta in the past (not currently). In my experience working at these companies and diving into the reported incidents/issues (e.g. Batterygate, Myanmar, Cambridge Analytica), I have found that comments like yours present an overly reductive worldview. You are likely entirely informed by ragebait news articles that grossly misrepresent the issues as opposed to a nuanced understanding of (1) the widely reported incidents, and (2) the services these companies provide and those that rely on them to make a living. No, it would not be replaced "in an instant" with other options, and any other options would quickly evolve into the same state as FB/IG today unless you make targeted ads illegal (which - again - would collapse millions of small businesses and centralize power for wealthy large businesses).
  - nottorp 2y ago
    > would collapse millions of small businesses How? And do they have the right to exist if their only income is targeted ads?
    - xvector 2y ago
      How do you expect small businesses to acquire customers? Spending tens of millions of dollars competing in generalized ad space to reach the same audience they can reach today with $1000? Most small businesses that exist today would become nonviable overnight, and that is a huge chunk of the economy. Sure, you can say "they shouldn't have the right to exist" because they use targeted ads, but I have yet to hear a solid argument for why such ads are an infringement on our fundamental rights such that the whole SMB segment of the economy is worth destroying.
      - nottorp 2y ago
        Let me guess, there were no small businesses in the whole world before the advent of digital automated targeted ads?
        xvector 2y ago
- alex1138 2y ago
  I've seen too much from the last few years (covid, mostly, but other things) to take much stock in what people are commonly referring to as misinformation But yeah, I don't like what they do competition wise (Whatsapp seems like clear antitrust) and their products are badly designed (have more things shoved into your feed that you're not following!)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
tonyedgecombe 2y ago
Yeah, because small businesses didn't exist before Facebook arrived.

lores 2y ago

Someone here hazarded the hypothesis that Trump's tariffs are a stick aimed not towards other countries, but towards American corporations, who have to pledge fealty (and resources) to Trump in exchange for relief. I think it makes a lot of sense, if any of this is rational, which I'm not entirely sold on.

blitzar 2y ago
You gotta kick back to the big guy.
piltdownman 2y ago
Look at 47's truth social some time. In between the posts 'destroying' liberals and lionising the worst actors in his party, he posts up a disturbing amount of 'settlements' with Law Firms that previously displeased him. They were basically forced at gunpoint to make deals to provide pro bono services to the Trump administration, in return for regulators dropping investigations into their diversity practices. The firms - including Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Allen Overy Shearman Sterling, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft – are among the most prestigious and recognized firms in the US. Cadwalader is the former firm of Todd Blanche, who resigned his partnership there to represent Trump in criminal cases when the firm would not take on Trump as a client. Blanche is now the deputy attorney general – the number two official at the Department of Justice. Overall the MAGA cabinet has now secured more than $900m in pro bono pledges from law firms threatened with either executive orders or investigations from the equal opportunity commission. How this isn't seen as a straight up RICO case or old-fashioned criminal shakedown is beyond me.
paxys 2y ago
It's always funny when shit happens and everyone jumps over themselves to figure out what "5D chess" the people in charge are playing. There's never any chess. They are just incompetent.
- lores 2y ago
  That's not 5D chess at all. Very straightforward, in fact, and backed up by the documented strong-arming of law firms.

rsynnott 2y ago

> Of course Meta could just withdrawn from the EU. I mean, probably not without being sued by their shareholders. As a public company, you cannot simply abandon 40bn revenue/year because you feel aggrieved. But yeah, the "you'd better be nice to us, EC, or Trump might be angry" tactic is kinda shot at this point.

barbazoo 2y ago
> I mean, probably not without being sued by their shareholders. As a public company, you cannot simply abandon 40bn revenue/year because you feel aggrieved. What are the laws that Meta would be violating?
- tonyedgecombe 2y ago
  >As a public company, you cannot simply abandon 40bn revenue/year because you feel aggrieved. The fines need to get bigger then.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  Fiduciary duty. It's a high bar, but "we abandoned 25% of our revenue in a fit of pique over our being required to follow the law on consent" probably gets you there.
  - barbazoo 2y ago
    That gets thrown around a lot but those folks are masters at corporate messaging. All you need to do is tie a bow and back the decision up with a long term strategy. I don't accept "fiduciary duty" being the pretext for any shitty behavior.