“We can’t be intimidated by something like this”: EU ministers are confident that Europe will survive the closure of Facebook and Instagram

Yesterday we wrote that Meta may shut down Instagram and Facebook in Europe due to EU laws. The answer to these threats was not long in coming.

No problem

The company's statement was commented today by two EU officials - Robert Habeck, German Economy Minister, and Bruno Le Maire, French Finance Minister. The two agreed that Europe should not be scared off by social media shutdowns and stressed that Meta must comply with the new EU rules or its social media platforms will be banned across Europe.

“I lived without Facebook for four years and life was fantastic. The European Union is such a large internal market with such great economic strength that if we act together, we will not be intimidated. something similar,” said Robert Habek.

His colleague added that "life without Facebook is great" and "people would live very well without Facebook."

“I can confirm that life is very good without Facebook and that we would be very good without Facebook. Digital giants must understand that the European continent will resist and assert its sovereignty,” Bruno Le Maire emphasized.

As a reminder, according to EU laws, companies must store data exclusively on European servers, while Meta sends user data from Europe to its servers in the United States.

A source: Bloomberg