- Mark Zuckerberg has asked President-elect Trump to stop imposing fines on the EU
- Meta CEO compared GDPR and antitrust fines to tariffs on US companies
- The request comes after Facebook and Instagram changed fact-checking services with community notes.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called on President-elect Donald Trump to stop the European Union from imposing fines on American companies for violating the bloc’s antitrust, data protection and other rules.
Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Zuckerberg said: “I think it’s a strategic advantage for the United States that we have many of the strongest companies in the world, and I think it should be part of the United States’ strategy going forward to defend that.” “
Meta has faced fines worth €2.619 billion ($2.67 billion) from the European Union since 2022 alone as a result of violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Meta was also fined 797.72 million euros ($813.71 million) by the end of 2024 for violating EU antitrust rules.
Zuckerberg gets closer to Trump
Zuckerberg suggested that the EU’s competition and data protection regulations were, “like a tariff” on American companies, playing on Trump’s recent threats to impose high tariffs on imported goods from around the world.
If Trump were to heed Zuckerberg’s suggestion, which is unlikely, US companies would not have to comply with the data and competition regulations that companies operating in the EU must comply with. As a result, American companies would likely face sanctions and restrictions on operating in the EU, excluding a significant portion of the West as a potential market for American companies.
Following Trump’s successful election victory, numerous companies have offered huge donations to the president-elect’s inauguration fund, likely in an effort to please him, and Meta donated $1 million.
Zuckerberg, whose initial foray into social media began with a site used to rate the physical attractiveness of Harvard female students, told Rogan that he “started building social media to give people a voice,” and that Facebook and Instagram would soon They would eliminate data verification. services as they have become “too politically biased.”
The recent election also acted as a “cultural turning point to once again prioritize speech,” he said in a video later shared on Facebook.
Instead, social media platforms owned by Meta would begin the transition to a community notes system, similar to that used on X (formerly Twitter). Meta also announced the discontinuation of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
UK technology secretary Peter Kyle has already stated that the recently introduced Online Safety Act is “not subject to negotiation”.
“The threshold for these laws allows for responsible freedom of expression to a very, very high degree. But I just want to make this basic point: access to British society and our economy is a privilege, not a right. And none of our basic protections for children and vulnerable people are up for negotiation,” Kyle said in an interview with the Observer.
