Skip to Content
Silicon Valley

Forget the US—Facebook is about to have its hands full in Europe

The dust has settled on the Congressional hearings over Facebook's huge data scandal, but now there are some aggressive lawmakers across the pond for the firm to contend with.

The news: Bloomberg reports that Mark Zuckerberg will meet with the European Commission's vice president, Andrus Ansip—whose role involves regulating digital businesses—when the lawmaker visits San Francisco this week.

Zuck in the EU? The Facebook CEO still has outstanding requests to appear in front of the European Parliament and a British Parliamentary committee, in order to explain how user data was acquired by Cambridge Analytica. So far, he's offered to send other execs to Europe on his behalf.

More to fear? As Axios notes, there will still be a long wait before any American regulation hits Facebook. Meanwhile, there's plenty happening in Europe to keep Zuck awake at night. The sweeping new General Data Protection Regulation comes into effect across the EU next month, for one thing, and aggressive antitrust regulators who have recently been clamping down on Big Tech could target his firm, too.

Why it matters: There are more active Facebook users in Europe than the US, but so far America has been the focus of the social network's apology tour to ease concerns of public and lawmakers alike. Zuck's meeting with Ansip could be just the start of a much larger charm offensive required to calm similar worries across the Atlantic.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Geoffrey Hinton tells us why he’s now scared of the tech he helped build

“I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us.”

Meet the people who use Notion to plan their whole lives

The workplace tool’s appeal extends far beyond organizing work projects. Many users find it’s just as useful for managing their free time.

Learning to code isn’t enough

Historically, learn-to-code efforts have provided opportunities for the few, but new efforts are aiming to be inclusive.

Deep learning pioneer Geoffrey Hinton has quit Google

Hinton will be speaking at EmTech Digital on Wednesday.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.