In recent news, Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, Whatsapp, and other popular social media platforms has threatened to remove its content from Europe due to scrutiny and increased legal activity revolving the data that Facebook and the Meta corporation as a whole obtain from users. The reason for this threat comes from the Schrems II decision made by the EU’s Court of Justice back in 2020. However, this case goes back a decade before that when Maximillion Schrems, an Austrian Attorney had requested all the data Facebook had collected on him and received over 1000s of pages of information. With the EU ready to take a stand against Meta’s violation of security, Meta came back with a full report discussing how legislation against data collection affects their business model, citing a recent fine over data intrusion on minors and how such a punishment is an attack on their business model. They also cited a similar threat to U.S. congress members who wish to apply more regulation in the Telecommunications industry.

Across the board, there has been a call for higher regulation within the telecommunications field. We’ve been working with the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and small regulations within the FTC and the FCC in order to keep up with the changing technological atmosphere, but it’s not enough. Now, here comes one of the Telecommunications industries biggest players making threats to politicians that want to create legislation that is in line with this evolving business. This is so telling, especially with how Meta had previously claimed it was all for regulation, while also being upset that they can’t use minors for money, anymore. When the business model and profit becomes more important than proper regulation and security, you know a company has grown to powerful. I say let Facebook remove it’s platform from places. If its willing to lose an entire geographic market because of shady practices, I say let them pay the price for that. They have shown that they are willing to play dirty and throw threats against the right to privacy for the sake of their bottom line. Facebook has become a dangerous app to be apart of and its removal might be seen as a win in the fight for better telecommunications legislation.

Source: https://www.mediaite.com/tech/metas-latest-sec-filing-contains-a-threat-to-pull-facebook-and-instagram-from-europe-if-they-cant-keep-targeting-ads/