I think it’s fairly obvious that Meta needs Europe more than Europe needs Meta.
To be honest: a european wide poll of whether europeans decide to allow or ban meta (with its current practice) would probably not give the desired result.
They say they cannot - so current legislation is threat of a ban. And the imaginary poll would probably give very different results, depending on the wording:
"Should a exception for meta be made?"
vs.
"Should meta be banned fron operating in europe, for not following regulations"
People do not like exceptions for big companies, but they also do not like extra work and they usually do not like regulations from the EU, either
I feel like there's a whiff of discrimination in people who call for Facebook to be shut down. I'm sure it's easy for young people in cities to switch. Not everyone is as mentally nimble.
There are of course folks older than me who use Facebook but they all got to adulthood before Facebook even existed.
I can't imagine any of my peers being overly worried about facebook going away. We figured out how to communicate with our friends before facebook. We'll figure out how to do it again.
No I mean people in their 80s, 90s. Many of them isolated, and slowly learned Facebook, but probably not able to learn new things now.