Europe faces Facebook blackout

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forgottenuser79643

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https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-faces-facebook-blackout-instagram-meta-data-protection/

Europe faces Facebook blackout​

Ireland’s data authority informs its EU counterparts that it will block the platform from sending user data to the US.

Europeans risk seeing social media services Facebook and Instagram shut down this summer, as Ireland's privacy regulator doubled down on its order to stop the firm's data flows to the United States.

The Irish Data Protection Commission on Thursday informed its counterparts in Europe that it will block Facebook-owner Meta from sending user data from Europe to the U.S. The Irish regulator's draft decision cracks down on Meta's last legal resort to transfer large chunks of data to the U.S., after years of fierce court battles between the U.S. tech giant and European privacy activists.

The European Court of Justice in 2020 annulled an EU-U.S. data flows pact called Privacy Shield because of fears over U.S. surveillance practices. In its ruling, it also made it harder to use another legal tool that Meta and many other U.S. firms use to transfer personal data to the U.S., called standard contractual clauses (SCCs). This week's decision out of Ireland means Facebook is forced to stop relying on SCCs too.

Meta has repeatedly warned that such a decision would shutter many of its services in Europe, including Facebook and Instagram.

"If a new transatlantic data transfer framework is not adopted and we are unable to continue to rely on SCCs or rely upon other alternative means of data transfers from Europe to the United States, we will likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe," Meta said in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in March this year.
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“This draft decision, which is subject to review by European Data Protection Authorities, relates to a conflict of EU and US law which is in the process of being resolved," a Meta spokesperson said. "We welcome the EU-US agreement for a new legal framework that will allow the continued transfer of data across borders, and we expect this framework will allow us to keep families, communities and economies connected."
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Approve South Park GIF
 
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I"m sure Europeans are in shock at the possibility of losing Farcebook. Sign up for GAB. Much better, and almost no censorship.
 
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Digmor Crusher said:
Ok, I'll bite, had a look at GAB, I'll pass, looks like a place for right wing conspiracy nut jobs.
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Pretty much. The absolute opposite of Farcebook. The socialist left is on GAB; you just don't see them as much unless they focus on you or a thread you're in.
 
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Personally, if I had the time I would have not minded helping in hosting a federated server and help program a UX to make it even more accessible than Facebook. Spread some privacy awareness without them, the users, even realizing it. I get some donations to keep the server up, they spread the word, I get more users. Everyone wins till someone else with millions in his pocket takes over the market.

But all that is wishful thinking, i know.
 
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mlnevese said:
So... not that I m interested or anything but... How do we get a Facebook blackout in other parts of the world? :alien:
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In theory, by demanding through regulation and law that the data stays within that region/market's soil. That is what initially pushed this sort of decisions in the past years. The holding and presence of a server and corresponding data centres, was not enough as long as the data on them would be transmitted to data centres on USA soil where they are applicable to other laws/regulations. Where the data centre and Meta are obligated to follow the law, which conflicts with the law of the EU in regard to the data of the users for that region.

I do not expect them to break the law of the USA where they are based out off, neither do I expect them to actually shutdown in the EU market. However, the EU law dictates that the user data needs to be both on EU soil with the "consumer data protection" applicable in that market. Which in turn conflicts again with the USA regulations. It's a bit of a vicious cycle, you keep running in circles following your own tail. You follow one, you break the other and vice versa.

Strip away the politics, drama and every other layer on the onion and the core of the matter becomes simple. One faction doesn't want its citizen's user data to be on (and regulated by) foreign soil, whereas the other faction dictates by law to have access to that same data regardless of geolocation, market and local laws of the servers (and data centres) in question.

This kind of law of wanting access to data everywhere is more common, than most people realize. China, India, Russia, and Australia to name a few other well-known nations that have the exact same law in effect.
 
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