Zuckerberg asks Trump to stop US companies from having to pay EU fines
Date:
Mon, 13 Jan 2025 19:29:00 +0000
Description:
Meta CEO says American companies shouldn't have to pay for violating EU regulations.
FULL STORY ======================================================================
- Mark Zuckerberg has asked President-elect Trump to stop EU imposing fines
- Meta CEO compared GDPR and antitrust fines to tariffs on US companies
- Request comes after Facebook and Instagram move to replace fact checking services with community notes
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called on President-elect Donald Trump to stop
the European Union from levying fines against US companies for violating the blocs anti-trust, data protection, and other rules.
Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast , Zuckerberg said, I think it's
a strategic advantage for the United States that we have a lot of the
strongest companies in the world, and I think it should be part of the US strategy going forward to defend that.
Meta has faced 2.619 billion ($2.67 billion) in fines from the European Union since 2022 as a result of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
violations alone. Meta was also hit by a 797.72 million ($813.71 million)
fine late in 2024 for violating EU antitrust rules .
Zuckerberg cosying up to Trump
Zuckerberg suggested EU competition and data protection regulations were,
like a tariff on American companies, playing into Trumps recent threats to impose steep tariffs on imported goods from around the world.
If Trump were to heed Zuckerbergs suggestion, which is unlikely, US companies would not have to adhere to the data and competition regulations that
companies that operate in the EU must adhere to. As a result, US companies would likely face sanctions and restrictions on operating in the EU, cutting off a significant portion of the West as a potential market for US companies.
Following Trumps successful election win, numerous companies have offered
huge donations to the President-elects inauguration fund, likely in an effort to get into his good graces, with Meta donating $1 million.
Zuckerberg, whose initial foray into social media started with a site used to rank the physical attractiveness of female Harvard students, told Rogan he "started building social media to give people a voice", and that Facebook and Instagram would soon do away with fact checking services as they have become too politically biased."
The recent elections also acted as a cultural tipping point towards once
again prioritizing speech, he said in a video later shared on Facebook.
Instead, the Meta-owned social media platforms would begin transitioning towards a community notes system, similar to that used on X (formerly
Twitter). Meta also announced the discontinuation of its diversity, equity
and inclusion programs.
The UKs technology secretary, Peter Kyle, has already stated the recently-introduced Online Safety Act is not up for negotiation.
The threshold for these laws allows responsible free speech to a very, very high degree. But I just make this basic point: access to British society and our economy is a privilege its not a right. And none of our basic
protections for children and vulnerable people are up for negotiation, Kyle said in an interview with the Observer .
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Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/pro/zuckerberg-asks-trump-to-stop-us-companies-from- having-to-pay-eu-fines
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