- Mark Zuckerberg 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 decided to replace fact-checking services with community ratings
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called on President-elect Donald Trump to block the European Union from imposing fines on American companies for violating the bloc’s antitrust, data protection and other rules.
Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Zuckerberg said: “I think the fact that we have many of the strongest companies in the world is a strategic advantage for the United States, and I think that should be part of the American defense strategy in the future. that.”
Meta has faced 2.619 billion euros ($2.67 billion) in fines from the European Union since 2022 due to violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) alone. Meta was also fined 797.72 million euros ($813.71 million) in late 2024 for violating EU antitrust rules.
Zuckerberg gets closer to Trump
Zuckerberg suggested that EU competition and data protection regulations were “like tariffs” on US companies, playing on Trump’s recent threats to impose high tariffs on products imported from the whole world.
If Trump were to heed Zuckerberg’s suggestion, which is unlikely, American companies would not be required to comply with the data and competition regulations that companies that operate in the EU must adhere to. As a result, U.S. companies would likely face sanctions and restrictions on their operations in the EU, cutting off a significant portion of the West as a potential market for U.S. companies.
After Trump’s election victory, many companies offered huge donations to the president-elect’s inauguration fund, likely in an effort to get into his good graces, with Meta donating $1 million.
Zuckerberg, whose initial foray into social media began with a site used to rank the physical attractiveness of female Harvard students, told Rogan that he “started creating social media to give people a voice.” , and that Facebook and Instagram would soon remove fact-checking. services because they have become “too politically biased”.
The recent elections also represented a “cultural tipping point toward a new priority on speech,” he said in a video later shared on Facebook.
Instead, Meta-owned social media platforms would begin moving toward a community ratings system, similar to that used on X (formerly Twitter). Meta also announced the discontinuation of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
UK Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has already said the recently introduced Online Safety Act is “non-negotiable”.
“The threshold set for these laws allows for responsible freedom of expression to a very, very high degree. But I am simply making this fundamental point: access to British society and our economy is a privilege – it is not a right. And none of our basic protections for children and vulnerable people are negotiable,” Kyle said in an interview with the Observer.
