Comment by noirscape | Hacker News Reader

Comment by noirscape | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The main thing you're missing is that Facebook is the big corporation the GDPR was largely written to try and reign in AND that any judgement affecting Facebook is going to have downstream effects on other providers (there's been a few news sites trying the scheme in Europe too). This is gonna be the "do or die" for the pay-or-okay scheme. Given Facebook is doing it, I wouldn't put my chances on the "do" part; they are the extreme example and EU judges don't tend to look kindly on big corporations thinking they're capable of "outsmarting" their laws.

Is right to privacy while using Facebook services a fundamental right? Well, given some of the services they own - maybe they should be. WhatsApp is massive in the EU, while Instagram seems to be the replacement for Twitter for a lot of people now that Twitter itself is flooded with fools that nobody likes to interact with. We've already had Facebook suprise drop a "EULA change" on WhatsApp users that let them use WA data in the Facebook algorithms. The specific field Facebook is even in makes it unusually hard to leave. It's somewhat socially acceptable to not have a Facebook account. Its less acceptable to not have an Instagram and I don't think you can function in west-european society without WhatsApp at the moment; basically everyone expects you to have it.

So yes, privacy when using Facebook is extremely important (GDPR literally exists to codify privacy as a right) and pay-or-okay is holding it hostage.

I agree with the gist of your reply, but I object to this part:

> It's somewhat socially acceptable to not have a Facebook account. Its less acceptable to not have an Instagram and I don't think you can function in west-european society without WhatsApp at the moment; basically everyone expects you to have it.

I can assure you that it is perfectly viable to live a normal life in a west-european society without using any Meta product. It gets a bit more difficult if you have kids at school, though, with teachers and parents not being flexible.

Can you explain to a university student in Western Europe how to exist without WhatsApp and Instagram?

For example, parties are organized in Whatsapp group chats and the local library’s events are posted to Instagram.

If you mean anything to your friends they will use one of the multiple other ways to notify you. A library that is exclusively using a social media platform for announcements is doing it wrong and complaining or even suing might help.

While I agree with you, it’s substantially different between countries. WhatsApp is pretty much unused in Sweden, while Facebook is basically a necessity.

> is that Facebook is the big corporation the GDPR was largely written to try and reign

Actually GDPR text was largely written before shitting on Facebook became the cool kids thing.

The text was adopted by European Parliament in 2014. In 2011, EDPS publishes an opinion on political wants towards GDPR. It's very likely the text becomes written circa 2012-2013. That's waaaaay before any general public's disgruntlemnt with Facebook or any Big Tech giants. The public opinion against Big Tech starts to shift around 2015, after CJEU decides the so called "Google Spain" case (users being allowed to remove their search results from search engines). For reference, Cambridge Analytica story gets broken in 2018.

It is very likely that if GDPR was to be introduced today, the legal text would be much stricter and harsher. We need to realize that GDPR is a general data protection law. It does not prescribe industry-specific measures. It is written to apply to a bread baker so much as it is written to apply for a Big Tech giant. And that means race to the bottom in terms of legal standard.

Broadly agree, except:

> Facebook is the big corporation the GDPR was largely written to try and reign in

As I understand it, GDPR was to keep all the different EU member states' rules on the same page and up to date, and was continuing the same path that had already been stated with the Data Protection Directive in 1995: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive

Most of the core ideas were already present before Zuckerberg finished[0] high school.

[0] and possibly started, but I don't know how US schools work.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com