- Mark Zuckerberg has asked President-elect Trump to stop the EU from imposing fines
- Meta CEO compared GDPR and antitrust fines to tariffs on US companies
- The request comes after Facebook and Instagram moved to replace fact-checking services with community notes
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called on President-elect Donald Trump to stop the European Union from levying fines against US companies for violating the bloc’s antitrust, data protection and other rules.
Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Zuckerberg said: “I think it’s a strategic advantage for the United States that we have many of the strongest companies in the world, and I think that should be part of the American strategy going forward to defend that.”
Meta has faced €2.619 billion ($2.67 billion) in fines from the EU since 2022 as a result of violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) alone. Meta was also hit with a fine of DKK 797.72 million. EUR (813.71 million USD) late in 2024 for violating EU antitrust rules.
Zuckerberg cozying up to Trump
Zuckerberg suggested that EU competition and data protection rules “like a tariff” on US companies played into Trump’s recent threats to impose high tariffs on imported goods from around the world.
If Trump were to listen to Zuckerberg’s proposal, which is unlikely, American companies would not have to comply with the data and competition rules that companies operating in the European Union must comply with. As a result, US companies will likely face sanctions and restrictions on operating in the EU, cutting off a significant portion of the West as a potential market for US companies.
Following Trump’s successful election victory, several companies have offered huge donations to the president-elect’s inauguration fund, likely in an attempt to get into his good graces, with Meta donating $1 million.
Zuckerberg, whose first foray into social media started with a site used to rank the physical attractiveness of female Harvard students, told Rogan that he “started building social media to give people a voice” and that Facebook and Instagram would soon do away with fact-checking services as they have become “too politically biased”.
The recent election also served as a “cultural tipping point toward once again prioritizing speech,” he said in a video later shared on Facebook.
Instead, the Meta-owned social media platforms would begin transitioning to a community note system, similar to that used on X (formerly Twitter). Meta also announced the discontinuation of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
The UK’s technology secretary, Peter Kyle, has already stated that the newly introduced online security law is “non-negotiable”.
“The threshold for these laws allows for responsible free speech to a very, very high degree. But I’m just making this basic point: Access to British society and our economy is a privilege – it’s not a right. And none of our basic protections for children and vulnerable people are negotiable,” Kyle said in an interview with Observer.
