Meta recently threatened to pull out Facebook, Instagram, and its other services from Europe, if it barred from transferring EU users’ data to its US servers. However, unraveled by the threat, two politicians say life will be better without Facebook and they won’t be intimidated by big tech companies like Meta.
European Union and the U.S. are facing a deadlock in negotiations to replace a transatlantic data transfer pact that allows tech companies to transfer users’ data to the U.S. But in 2020, the EU Court of Justice struck down the privacy pact over concerns of safety of users’ data in the U.S. and now, the two sides can not reach an agreement on the terms of a new pact.
Fearful that a new, favorable, pact might not be reached, Meta’s published a warning to remove its services from Europe in its annual report.
Meta said that if it couldn’t rely on new or existing agreements — such as so-called standard contractual clauses — to shift data, then it would “likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe.”
European politicians say that life will be good without Facebook
Responding to the threat, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck and French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said that the sovereignty of the European continent is greater than Facebook and life will be “very good” without it. According to Bloomberg, they said;
“After being hacked I’ve lived without Facebook and Twitter for four years and life has been fantastic,” German Economy Minister Robert Habeck told reporters at an event alongside French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire in Paris on Monday.
“I can confirm that life is very good without Facebook and that we would live very well without Facebook,” Le Maire added. “Digital giants must understand that the European continent will resist and affirm its sovereignty.”
Minister Habeck also added that as a market the European Union is too big of a market for any tech giant to leave, thus, all the states must recognize their economic power and work in unity to shield themselves from such intimidating threats.
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