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Recently, Facebook has threatened to stop operating within the European Union.

Wait what? Does that mean we won’t have access to Facebook anymore? What about Instagram? Whatsapp?

This announcement took a lot of people by surprise, especially in the midst of the coronavirus crisis and the American elections. The reason behind this are the strict data protection regulations (i.e. GDPR) that the EU has introduced in 2018. In fact, GDPR heavily limits the capacity of companies to transfer data collected in Europe to other parts of the world, which can be a problem for American companies such as Facebook. Any kind of transfer needs to be validated by the European Commission under the assumption that data protection in the host country is at a satisfactory level compared to the GDPR.

This was never a problem for Facebook, as it used to be the case for the United States in the past. But since the revelations from Edward Snowden and the mass surveillance programs from the NSA, the European court of justice has ruled several times that American protections are not satisfactory and that any data protection agreement between the two entities is, hence, invalid.

This has recently pushed the government of Ireland to express it wish to enforce the new regulations banning data transfers from Facebook Ireland to Facebook US. This would, however, put Facebook in a tricky situation as it heavily relies on these data transfers to make its platforms and services available in Europe. Facebook has no intention to leave the continent, but this ban could make it virtually impossible for the company to operate the way it currently does.

So what could this mean for Europe?

I think there are two options here. On the one side, Facebook could modify its operations in order to avoid data transfers in general, or particularly to the US. As mentioned earlier, the data transfer is dependent on the commission’s approval. This could mean that Facebook could potentially transfer European data to countries that the commission approves (e.g. Canada).

Another opportunity here would be for European or Chinese social media platforms to take advantage of the situation. If Facebook was to leave the continent, this could allow for the emergence of an EU-based platform to take over FB’s activities, or this could leave a void that could be filled in by Chinese competitors such as TikTok or WeChat, under the conditions that they also avoid risky data transfers.

References

David, G. (2020). Facebook Says it Will Stop Operating in Europe If Regulators Don’t Back Down. Retrieved from Vice News: https://www.vice.com/en/article/889pk3/facebook-threatens-to-pull-out-of-europe-if-it-doesnt-get-its-way

Landau, S., 2013. Making Sense from Snowden: What’s Significant in the NSA Surveillance Revelations. IEEE Security & Privacy, 11(4), pp.54-63.

TLDR News EU (2020, September 25). Facebook Threatens to Quit Europe: SORRY… WHAT? Will Facebook Leave Europe? – TLDR News

. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFNJDKAHlYs

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Sunday, September 20th, 2020. This was the day where 2 of the biggest social networks in the world were to be banned from the US market. Yet, TikTok & WeChat are still very well available on the American AppStore and Google Play store. So what happened?

It has long been announced that Donald Trump wanted to ban TikTik and WeChat from accessing American customers. The base for this ban came from claims from the president that the companies are not only collecting the personal data of American users, just like other social media, but also providing it to the Chinese government. Whether these claims are founded or not is another debate. Nevertheless, the American Departement of Commerce still released a directive to prevent the two platforms from being downloaded in the country. So why are they not banned yet?

On the one hand, it turns out that TikTok prevented its ban by agreeing to a deal with both Oracle & Wallmart in order to create a new business entity and avoid the ban altogether. The president agreed to extend the deadline by a week in a sign of good faith. On the other hand, in regard to WeChat, the situation is very different. A judge prevented the ban by blocking the decision. This was made under the assumption this ban was contradictory with WeChat’s first amendment rights. In fact, WeChat claims that the government would be discriminating against Chinese-Americans as the platform has vital importance for the community. It is still unknown for now whether these claims will hold.

All in all, I believe this undoubtedly marks a new low in Chinese-American relations solely based on the assumptions of their current president. I find it quite paradoxical to denounce WeChat and TikTok for their personal data use especially after massive privacy breaches from American companies like Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal. I am convinced, of course, that online privacy is a crucial concern in our day and age. However, I don’t think restrictions and regulations should be based on political battles but rather on fundamental rights. What do you think?

References

Lyons, K. (2020) TikTok and WeChat both managed to avoid their Sunday bans. The Verge. Retrieved from: https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/20/21447702/tiktok-wechat-avoid-ban-china-trump-apps

Allyn, B. (2020). TikTok Ban Averted: Trump Gives Oracle-Walmart Deal His ‘Blessing’. NPR. Retrieved from: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/20/914032065/tiktok-ban-averted-trump-gives-oracle-walmart-deal-his-blessing?t=1600721586302