The CEO and owner of the Facebook and Instagram applications, Mark Zuckerberg, to close its operations in Europe did not go unnoticed, but the response came directly and perhaps sarcastic from European leaders.
"He lived without Facebook and Twitter for four years after being hacked," the new German Economy Minister, Robert Habeck, told reporters during a meeting in Paris on Monday night, "and life was wonderful," as he put it.
For his part, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, speaking alongside his German colleague, confirmed, "Life would be very good without Facebook," according to the "CITYA.M" website.
The two ministers commented on Meta's statement that, "If it is not given the option to transfer, store and process data from European users on servers based in the United States, Facebook and Instagram may be closed throughout Europe."
Zuckerberg warned in his annual report that, "the main problem for his company is transatlantic data transfers, which are regulated via the so-called "Privacy Shield" and other agreements that Meta uses to store data from European users on US servers."
In a recent report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Meta warned that if a data transfer framework is not adopted and the company is no longer allowed to use existing agreements "or alternatives", the company "likely" will not be able to offer many "products and services". Most Important", including Facebook and Instagram, in the European Union, according to various media reports.
Meta stressed, “Data sharing between countries and regions is critical to their service provision and targeted advertising, as existing agreements to enable data transfers are currently under intense scrutiny in the European Union.”
Therefore, it has previously used the Transatlantic Data Transfer Framework “Privacy Shield” as the legal basis for carrying out such data transfers.
However, this treaty was annulled by the European Court of Justice in July 2020, due to data protection violations.
Since then, the European Union and the United States have confirmed that they are working on a new or updated version of the treaty.