I think if I was creating a new social media website today I'd probably not set up any presence in the EU. The sheer quantity of fines for vaguely specified "crimes" being handed out makes it a deeply unattractive business environment and it seems to be getting worse. I remember when Facebook was new, one of its big competitive advantages was its easy and comprehensive privacy controls. I didn't see other social netw…
From the other side of the coin, I think if your business model is based on the exploitation of peoples data, the EU doesn't want your 'SV disruption'. From https://www.wired.com/story/inside-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-... it would appear that these lessons are being learned, somewhat slowly.
An inteesting article, certainly, but it buries a rather explosive accusation:
Zuckerberg had reason to take the meeting (with
Rupert Murdoch) especially seriously, according
to a former Facebook executive, because he had
firsthand knowledge of Murdoch’s skill in the
dark arts. Back in 2007, Facebook had come under
criticism from 49 state attorneys general for
failing to protect young Facebook users from
sexual predators and inappropriate content.
Concerned parents had written to Connecticut
attorney general Richard Blumenthal, who opened
an investigation, and to The New York Times,
which published a story. But according to a
former Facebook executive in a position to
know, the company believed that many of the
Facebook accounts and the predatory behavior
the letters referenced were fakes, traceable
to News Corp lawyers or others working for
Murdoch, who owned Facebook’s biggest competitor,
MySpace. “We traced the creation of the Facebook
accounts to IP addresses at the Apple store a
block away from the MySpace offices in Santa
Monica,” the executive says. “Facebook then traced
interactions with those accounts to News Corp lawyers.
When it comes to Facebook, Murdoch has been playing
every angle he can for a long time.” (Both News Corp and
its spinoff 21st Century Fox declined to comment.)