- Mark Zuckerberg has asked President-elect Trump to stop EU imposing fines
- Meta CEO compared GDPR and antitrust fines to tariffs on US companies
- Request comes after Facebook and Instagram move to replace fact checking services with community notes
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called on President-elect Donald Trump to stop the European Union from levying fines against US companies for violating the bloc’s anti-trust, 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 a lot of the strongest companies in the world, and I think it should be part of the US strategy going forward to defend that.”
Meta has faced €2.619 billion ($2.67 billion) in fines from the European Union since 2022 as a result of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) violations alone. Meta was also hit by a €797.72 million ($813.71 million) fine late in 2024 for violating EU antitrust rules.
Zuckerberg cosying up to Trump
Zuckerberg suggested EU competition and data protection regulations were, “like a tariff” on American companies, playing into Trump’s recent threats to impose steep 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 adhere to the data and competition regulations that companies that operate in the EU must adhere to. As a result, US companies would likely face sanctions and restrictions on operating in the EU, cutting off a significant portion of the West as a potential market for US companies.
Following Trump’s successful election win, numerous companies have offered huge donations to the President-elect’s inauguration fund, likely in an effort to get into his good graces, with Meta donating $1 million.
Zuckerberg, whose initial foray into social media started with a site used to rank the physical attractiveness of female Harvard students, told Rogan he “started building social media to give people a voice”, and that Facebook and Instagram would soon do away with fact checking services as they have become “too politically biased.”
The recent elections also acted as a “cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech,” he said in a video later shared on Facebook.
Instead, the Meta-owned social media platforms would begin transitioning towards a community notes system, similar to that used on X (formerly Twitter). Meta also announced the discontinuation of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
The UK’s technology secretary, Peter Kyle, has already stated the recently-introduced Online Safety Act is “not up for negotiation”.
“The threshold for these laws allows responsible free speech to a very, very high degree. But I just make this basic point: access to British society and our economy is a privilege – it’s 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.
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benedict.collins@futurenet.com (Benedict Collins)
