It's not a website, it's a complex and sophisticated media and marketing platform with many, many different features and all of that comes with a bunch of pros and cons.
How can you even know if it doesn't affect you (either positively or negatively)?
My argument is that Google and Equifax are fundamentally different from Facebook, which amounts to pretty much just a website. Equifax obviously has immense impact on one's life because of the nature of the data they collect and their role in determining one's creditworthiness. Google also has a huge impact because of how critical their search product is to so many individuals and businesses. Facebook isn't really that important by comparison, it's just popular. For most people, Facebook is a silly addiction and time waster, using the site let's you view some photos and comments or maybe chat. That's it. It's just not a big deal.
Then facebook/google/whatever can't process data from me without consent (which they do not have without an account)..
"Under GDPR organizations in breach of GDPR can be fined up to 4% of annual global turnover or €20 Million (whichever is greater). This is the maximum fine that can be imposed for the most serious infringements e.g._not having sufficient customer consent to process data_ or violating the core of Privacy by Design concepts."
I'm not overly familar with the English terms for all these economic stats, but I think "turnover" is "revenue", and that's $27.638E9 [1] according to Wikipedia. So the fine would be about $1.1E9. On the same Wikipedia page, I see that their net income is some $10.217E9. Is "net income" the same as "profit"? If so, does that mean that even this massive fine would only be 10% of their profit?
If so, I can easily see "annual GDPR fine" becoming a standard bulletpoint in their earnings report, as long as Facebook thinks that the data collected is worth more than the fine.
[1] 1E9 = 1 billion
Not once a year
This is a terrible comparison. A decade old tech company is not at all comparable to one of the oldest and most powerful and influential institutions in history.
Zuckerberg with the strip of tape over his own laptop's camera is like the Pope, living in a palace wearing a gold hat while claiming to be all about the poor.
Actually it's rather apt given that there are more Facebook users (2B) than Catholics (1.2B).
The reality is that Facebook has a disturbing amount of influence on what a quarter of the worlds population see and hear on any given day. No, Facebook can't directly give orders but as a mechanism for propaganda it has unparalleled reach.
> I suppose that makes Zuckerberg god in your analogy.
Closer to the Pope.
I apologize for sounding like a jerk, but have you ever read a history book? The impact of the Catholic church on human history completely eclipses Facebook's entire existence, the comparison is completely absurd. Comparing Facebook's monthly active users to the global population of Catholics is like comparing the total number of World of Warcraft subscribers to the total number of active duty U.S. soldiers; the difference in numbers is categorically meaningless.
> The reality is that Facebook has a disturbing amount of influence on what a quarter of the worlds population see and hear on any given day.
I don't really think it does. As I stated, the majority of people use Facebook for pretty standard social behavior like photo-sharing, messaging and comments. People go to Facebook because they can see what's going on with their friends and family or they subscribe to content providers that they already like and explicitly hide content they don't want to see. Don't misunderstand, this isn't to say that Facebook couldn't potentially abuse it's power for the purpose of spreading propaganda, but the reality is that this isn't really happening because people don't look to Facebook to form their opinions, they look to the echo chambers that Facebook allows them to curate at their own discretion. Facebook is a mirror of their users and that is by design because Facebook only care about eyeballs. Of course, whenever Facebook filters or deletes something people get up in arms and complain about censorship and blah blah blah, but 99% of the time this is just sour grapes from the community that favored the removed content.