The background is a ruling by the European Court of Justice, which is intended to better protect data from EU citizens. In a current and very extensive annual report, Meta now announces the withdrawal of Facebook and Instagram from Europe. In simple terms, it says, “If we can’t share data between Europe and the United States, we probably won’t be able to offer Facebook and Instagram in Europe.”
Under the name Privacy Shield, companies were previously allowed to carry out transatlantic data transfers. However, due to several breaches of existing data protection, the European Court of Justice declared this agreement null and void in July 2020. This means that data from European users should not be allowed to be transferred to servers in the USA, or only to a very limited extent.
Complete withdrawal unlikely
But how likely is a Facebook shutdown in Europe? In fact, it might be a bluff. It is hard to imagine that Meta will completely withdraw from Europe. The group’s main concern should be to save sales. Zuckerberg cannot afford to lose all of Europe. With the hidden threat, Meta probably hopes to put pressure on the European Parliament.
historic loss
Not only the data regulations are currently causing problems for the Zuckerberg group. In the past week, Meta has lost around a quarter of its value in one fell swoop. The market value shrank by 220 billion dollars (194 billion euros). According to data from the financial service Bloomberg, this was a record drop in value.
The trigger for the extraordinary drop in prices was that the world’s largest online network was hardly able to gain any new users in the past quarter. The sales forecast for the current quarter also disappointed investors. Facebook’s founder and boss Mark Zuckerberg referred, among other things, to the competition from the video service Tiktok and the consequences of Apple’s measures for more data protection on the iPhone.
Source: Nachrichten
