Meta May Shut Down Facebook, Instagram in Europe

Meta (formerly known as Facebook) has threatened to halt the operations of its popular social media platforms Facebook and Instagram in Europe in the upcoming months if it fails to comply with the privacy policy of the European Union (EU). The company’s sensational claim is related to the regulation of transferring user data across the Atlantic.

The company has made this revelation in its annual report submitted to the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). The statement came in the wake of an ongoing petition against Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) that allows companies to transfer data outside the EU.

Meta in filing to SEC stated, 

“If a new transatlantic data transfer framework is not adopted and we are unable to continue to rely on SCC or rely upon other alternative means of data transfers from Europe to the United States, we will likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe.”

The companies have been following SCC in order to pursue their operations in the European countries after the EU-US Privacy Shield was made invalid in 2020 by the Court of Justice of the European Union.

What’s the issue?

The fact that the business model of social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram makes them heavily dependent on user data, has made them vulnerable in the current scenario. The issue is directly linked with revenue generation from targeted advertisements using the user’s data.

The tussle started in 2016 with the formation and implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that addresses an individual’s right on their personal data as the fundamental right.

When the GDPR came into force, the companies like Meta relied on the EU-US Privacy Shield (agreement) that regulated the travel of users’ personal data across the Atlantic. The court in the year 2020 ruled against the agreement making it invalid and then the Standard Contractual Clauses that are also known as SCC came into existence.

However, the existence of SCC is in danger as Austrian Privacy Activist Max Schrems has filed a petition against it in an Irish court that came to the Court of Justice of the European Union. As per the initial observation of the court, the SCC is likely to be scrapped.

The EU regulation simply asks the companies to process the user data within the territory under the EU jurisdictions. While, in order to proceed with targeted advertisements and other business purposes, they have to process the data on US servers.

What did Meta say?

Replying to the queries regarding the ‘threatening’ tone of the claim, a Meta spokesperson in an emailed statement to Bloomberg, said, “We have absolutely no desire and no plans to withdraw from Europe, but the simple reality is that Meta, and many other businesses, organizations, and services, rely on data transfers between the EU and the US in order to operate global services.”

Notably, this is not the first time when the social media giant has indicated making an exit from a country. Back in 2020, the company announced a similar stand against the law forcing the company to pay media firms for their articles.

Meanwhile, Meta’s claim of exiting from the EU has sparked a row of reactions. Speaking to reporters in Paris, newly appointed German economy minister Robert Habeck claimed that his ‘life has been fantastic’ since he stopped using Facebook and Twitter for years after he was hacked.

Agreeing with Habeck, his French counterpart Bruno Le Maire stated that life without Facebook would be ‘very good.’

On the other hand, calling for an alternative, German lawmaker Axel Voss, tweeted, 

“I have always called for an alternative to the EU US #privacyshield to find a balanced agreement on data exchange + always called for #GDPR flexibility. However, #META cannot just blackmail the EU into giving up its data protection standards, leaving the EU would be their loss.”

Interestingly, the company’s claims seem unlikely to take place considering Research by Statista which says that Facebook recorded 427 million monthly active users in Europe in the fourth quarter of 2021. Also, Instagram alone had 27.7 million users in Germany at the end of October 2021, in Italy, the number was 26.6 million, and 24.1 million and 21.6 million respectively in France and Spain.