The gap between the United States and Europe over the regulation of large digital companies is becoming an ever-deepening canyon. During the Davos summit last January, Donald Trump said all the bad things he thought about European regulations aimed at restoring better competition. And his vice-president, J.D. Vance, drove the point home during the closing of the AI summit in Paris, during which he had very harsh words about the regulation of AI on the old continent.
Friction on the Atlantic line
The American tech giants have all aligned themselves as one man behind the new tenant of the White House. They now hope to reap the dividends, and Meta did not fail to report to Donald Trump his dissatisfaction with European actions against him. As early as mid-January, even before Trump's inauguration, Mark Zuckerberg was already calling on him to defend the interests of American tech against Brussels.
And the climate is not going to improve between Meta and the European Commission. Joel Kaplan, the director of global policies, explained that his company will not hesitate to knock on the door of the Oval Office to complain about evil Europe. “When a company is treated differently and discriminatorily, it should be reported to the government of its home country,” he said during a question-and-answer session with Bloomberg in Munich, on the occasion of the security conference.
The former Republican Party strategist, who was installed at the top of Meta’s organization by Mark Zuckerberg to curry favor with Donald Trump, also indicated that the company wants to work “within the framework of the laws that Europe has adopted — and we always will.” However, he will not hesitate to point out when the company feels it has been treated "unfairly."
Meta still wants to be part of the fight against disinformation — the social media giant recently signed a voluntary code of conduct on the subject — but Joel Kaplan leaves doubts about the reality of the company's efforts. “We don’t want disinformation,” he said, but “people have different perspectives on what constitutes disinformation and what doesn’t.”
Meta is the subject of several European investigations, including under the Digital Services Regulation (DSA) regarding the protection of minors.
Source: Bloomberg
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