Comment on Instagram and Facebook under EU investigation for causing child addiction and harm
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 1 month agoLoads of young people use Instagram. And Messenger. And WhatsApp. Some have Threads. They own a few shitty mobile games companies.
Then on top of that Facebook collects data for third parties too via their ad network.
Going after Meta for this is 100% justified.
natarey@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Justified? Absolutely. Timely? Hardly.
My point was it’s more than a decade too late, and all the EU will do is levy a minor fine that Meta won’t even blink at. The only country that could impose real consequences is the US, and they have no interest in anything that doesn’t benefit these nightmare cyberpunk megacorps.
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Of course it would’ve been better if it were present from the beginning. But I’m not going to complain about them doing the right thing now.
barsoap@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Depends on whether you count from the time facebook etc. became a problem and was recognised or such, or the passing of the Digital Services Act. The commission can’t just impose fines randomly they have to have a legislative basis to do it.
EU fines are generally not a thing you can just blink at they’re measured in percent of world-wide turnover. Historically they don’t really dissuade companies from trying shit but they definitely are sufficient to make them stop shit. Also actually way more importantly they probably have tiktok in the pipeline but the paperwork still needs the one or other t crossed.
natarey@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I was counting from when Facebook et al. became a clear problem — because, again, while I’m glad the EU is looking at this, it’s the US that has needed to take action. Their refusal to do so has left it to the EU to try to something, and i disagree that whatever they end up doing will make a difference. Like, if the price of the crime is a fine, then the crime is legal for a company as big as Meta.
barsoap@lemm.ee 1 month ago
If they’re found to be tanking a continuous fine of 5% revenue because they’re too darn profitable it won’t take long for the parliament to change the regulation. With sufficient harm to the consumers it’s also possible to simply shut down facebook, or at least their ability to do business in the EU which would make the market completely unprofitable as they’re relying on EU advertisers. They definitely can unplug each and every server facebook has in the EU. The EP is way less captured by lobby interest than the US legislature is, doubly so by an uppity US company trying to skirt EU law.
What’s more likely to happen though is the shareholders firing management because picking a fight with a bully the size of the EU isn’t exactly good for the share price.