Facebook says it may quit Europe over ban on sharing data with US
www.theguardian.com
EU court in July ruled there were insufficient safeguards against snooping by US intelligence agencies

Is anyone else really curious about how this might positively impact software/the web? I’m sure people can come up with efficiency bogeymen, but I can see

  • local stuff adapted for local needs/cultures
  • federated software getting a real boost to whatever extent it can avoid caching other servers’ data[1] to be compliant–then you can just have your stuff live in your Lithuanian provider and pull across dank Canadian memes
  • broadly better practices around cellular / partitioned infrastructure

We should all be skeptical of markets as a force for good in any situation, but I can’t help thinking some shattering (nay, might I say… “disruption”?) of “natural monopolies” will lead to there being local demand that can spur innovation for cooler things.

  1. I believe Pleroma doesn’t store images, for instance, just pulls them from the origin server. Lots of perf concerns with these approaches but perhaps potential ↩︎

  • lepus
    11·
    4 years ago

    Great news! Now if only they’d leave the US…

  • ReK2
    6·
    4 years ago

    please leave us alone! FACEBOOK GO HOME!

  • QuentinCallaghan
    6·
    4 years ago

    I read a Finnish news article about the subject where Aura Salla, Facebook’s manager of EU relations, was interviewed. She told that the discussion about the subject has gotten off the rails and that the company isn’t considering leaving EU as a relevant scenario due to over 25 million enterprise customers. According to her, it’s more about access to the data which getting restricted may cause problems for all companies. Also the company’s manager of societal relations, Nick Clegg told in European Business Summit that they are not leaving EU.

    If Facebook doesn’t wuss out and really leaves EU, the timing couldn’t get any better for alternative social media platforms (especially federated ones) to break in and rise in popularity.

    • MayaOP
      21·
      4 years ago

      nah, I guess I just mean that with the disruption to FB’s network effects, people looking for replacements have a proven demand for social media in their lives, but don’t necessarily have to go with a FB clone, so that gives the industry (esp. local industry) a real chance to get adoption for newer, weirder ideas.

  • BforBrian
    5·
    4 years ago

    “A lack of safe, secure and legal international data transfers would damage the economy and hamper the growth of data-driven businesses in the EU, just as we seek a recovery from Covid-19.”

    I have an idea. Hear me out guys.

    Instead of making money off of stolen data… Provide a paid service that’s worth the peoples money! :O