This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Completely off-topic but...do you see the link picture as shaking?
For me it dances HARD and is very snappy. I wonder if it's me, my sleep deprivation or actually an illusion
Yeah, I do. But I'm extremely tired as well so I'm not a good comparison
Interesting. It almost doesn't happen after I rested well
Haha, same. I didn't expect that.
This is like an article declaring, "EU Investigates MySpace for causing child addiction and harm" -- the people they're trying to protect don't use that product any more. The time to do this investigation was fifteen years ago, and the US government should have been the ones to do it.
Don't get me wrong -- fuck Facebook. I hope they have to pay billions. But the people that company is harming now are adults and the elderly. I'm sure fifteen years from now, once all those people are dead, there'll be an in-depth investigation and legislation about it.
Loads of young people use Instagram. And Messenger. And WhatsApp. Some have Threads. They own a few shitty mobile games companies.
Then on top of that Facebook collects data for third parties too via their ad network.
Going after Meta for this is 100% justified.
Justified? Absolutely. Timely? Hardly.
My point was it’s more than a decade too late, and all the EU will do is levy a minor fine that Meta won’t even blink at. The only country that could impose real consequences is the US, and they have no interest in anything that doesn’t benefit these nightmare cyberpunk megacorps.
Of course it would've been better if it were present from the beginning. But I'm not going to complain about them doing the right thing now.
And EU fines so far have proven to be quite the motivator. These aren't the baby fines the US hands out.
Timely? Hardly.
Depends on whether you count from the time facebook etc. became a problem and was recognised or such, or the passing of the Digital Services Act. The commission can't just impose fines randomly they have to have a legislative basis to do it.
EU fines are generally not a thing you can just blink at they're measured in percent of world-wide turnover. Historically they don't really dissuade companies from trying shit but they definitely are sufficient to make them stop shit. Also actually way more importantly they probably have tiktok in the pipeline but the paperwork still needs the one or other t crossed.
I was counting from when Facebook et al. became a clear problem — because, again, while I’m glad the EU is looking at this, it’s the US that has needed to take action. Their refusal to do so has left it to the EU to try to do something, and I’m skeptical that whatever they end up doing will make a difference. Like, if the price of the crime is a fine, then the crime is legal for a company as big as Meta.
If they're found to be tanking a continuous fine of 5% revenue because they're too darn profitable it won't take long for the parliament to change the regulation. With sufficient harm to the consumers it's also possible to simply shut down facebook, or at least their ability to do business in the EU which would make the market completely unprofitable as they're relying on EU advertisers. They definitely can unplug each and every server facebook has in the EU. The EP is way less captured by lobby interest than the US legislature is, doubly so by an uppity US company trying to skirt EU law.
What's more likely to happen though is the shareholders firing management because picking a fight with a bully the size of the EU isn't exactly good for the share price.
Well, you’re more optimistic than I am, but I hope you’re right.
The whole internet feels like it’s in a state of irrecoverable rot, and the last ten years have really tanked my confidence in governments to do anything about the clearly harmful, consumer hostile behavior inflicted on us — mostly because they seem to benefit a lot from letting Meta et al. do whatever they want. Like, EU fines, to date, have looked more like the organization wanting to wet their beak rather than fixing anything. I don’t know.
Literally every teenager at my school uses Instagram, kids do use Instagram still
I know, I'm addicted to children now.
I hope they'll get investigated for boomer radicalization next.
I lost both mother and father for conspiracy theories. Unfortunately no way back . They are totally brainwashed
Sorry for your loss.
They will now be part of the boomers being fools community.
By the level of conspiracy they are I think they have a high rank in community
Got into a huge argument with my dad and almost lost all contact with him from right wing brainwashing. We're good now but it's scarry just how far the right will go to tear families apart just to get what they want. I hope every last GOP member burns a slow painful death.
My wife's parents went crazy lead brained. They went pure antivaxxer and said if we don't want our kids to have grandparents, then get vaccinated. We lolled and said, "Bye".
It's been four years now.
They now pretend like they didn't say that every few months by sending us gifts and cards, that we promptly give away to charity.
We must have the same inlaws haha. Similar situation with my wife's parents and one sibling. They've never met our kid and still put all their right wing Facebook conspiracies ahead of meeting him. No loss to us - we'd rather spend time with sane people anyway.
That requires one to acknowledge there's a problem and then summon the will to change it, which isn't a hallmark of radicalism.
Delete it for them?
