Not only will #Threads not be launching in the EU (presumably because it'll be sucking up so much personal data that they can't make it GDPR compliant), but now the The European Court of Justice has agreed with Germany’s anti-cartel watchdog that Meta can't share harvested personal data between Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. That ruling will also apply to Threads.
@kfet yeah, I probably could’ve written that better. Not saying they won’t ever launch in the EU, but not anytime soon given the structural changes they need to make to the app and its data sharing with Instagram.
@Brendanjones it's mostly because #NSAbook as Stasi 4.0 wants to link data, and they don't want to get extra SLAPP'd and another permanent injuction by the European Court by blatantly violating their latest ruling that bans them from doing so.
@Brendanjones Wasn’t the timeline the other way round? The German case was a week ago, so Meta‘s decision not to launch threads is probably following that ruling. When using WhatsApp (then) Facebook agreed to not share data which they then did nonetheless. In view of the cases it makes sense for them to now be more careful. These might well be practical challenges to comply more carefully and show some goodwill.
It’s messy, but it’s a technical and legal mess, not morally.
@b3n per my second post in the thread, that's unknown. Neither Meta nor the Irish DPC have said the exact reason why Threads isn't launching in the EU (as far as I know).
I'm seeing articles like this one claim the reason for the non-EU launch is the EU's Digital Markets Act, not GDPR, but I'm not sure the source on that. As far as I can tell, Meta haven't stated their reasons, and the Irish Data Protection Commission haven't blocked anything yet (Ireland because that's where Meta's European office is). The DMA is the act stopping Meta combining data from different platforms.
Please update me if you see any clarifications on the matter!
@Brendanjones
Hm, I've seen DMA cited in conversations on the Mastodon discord where that seems to be the consensus about their reasons for no EU rollout. I haven't seen evidence per se, but we could consider that it's available in the UK which has GDPR but no DMA
@Brendanjones It's hilarious they think they're going to just be able to turn on ActivityPub and start pulling in posts (with no license no less!) from millions of EU persons when they're so badly out of compliance they can't even offer their own service there.
@Cas_33 it’s nuts, isn’t it? Health, financial and location info, as well as contacts … and of course tracking all your browsing. Imagine needing all of that for microblogging! We thought this was normal for a couple of decades there. Now it’s time for this business model to die in a ditch.
@Brendanjones It also includes most non-EU members in Europe who are signed up to the Council of Europe, including the European Court of Huamn Rights & European Convention on Human Rights. Russia and belarus are the only ones to withdraw from them so far.
@Brendanjones They passed a similar rule on WhatsApp when Facebook bought it. FB said OK fine, then a few months later they just ignored it & centralised all User data anyway! Never heard of any penalty but if there was it was most probably simply absorbed into their accounts & forgotten about.
Bis repetita.
@Quantillion
What galls me is that even sensitive professions such as doctors use a 'professional account' on WhatsApp. Talk about keeping patient data private.
Many hospitals and blood labs use Google services in the Netherlands. It's rampant.
@pascaline@Quantillion I mean the patient data itself is private – Whatsapp aren't reading your messages – but they do know that you're talking to a doctor, and when. In any case I completely agree, public services shouldn't be using proprietary, closed systems.
@pascaline@Quantillion And I definitely know what you mean with hospitals using Google services here in NL. Even the Google cookies I can't stand. Nee, ik wil aub geen Youtube cookies!
Similarly interesting, the Court stressed that data protection and access to personal data are crucial factors for #competition in digital markets (Para 51).
Breaches against the #GDPR can be considered by competition authorities when assessing the abuse of a dominant position under EU Law (Para 48).
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