Meta is prepared to escalate its concerns over what it sees as unfair European Union regulations directly to U.S. President Donald Trump, according to its global affairs chief. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Joel Kaplan said that the company “won’t hesitate” to seek intervention if it believes E.U. policies discriminate against U.S. tech firms.
Meta challenges E.U. oversight
“When companies are treated differently and in a way that is discriminatory against them, then that should be highlighted to that company’s home government,” Kaplan said during a panel discussion, as per Bloomberg. “While we want to work within the confines of the laws that Europe has passed — and we always will — we will point out when we think we’ve been treated unfairly.”
In recent years, the EU has intensified efforts to rein in big tech, safeguard digital rights, and enforce stricter data privacy laws. Meta, whose business model hinges on data collection for targeted advertising, has repeatedly clashed with these regulations.
Meta — which owns Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Threads — has been slapped with upwards of €2 billion in fines for breaching the region’s antitrust and data protection rules, which include GDPR, the Digital Markets Act, and the Digital Services Act. This total includes a record €1.2 billion penalty in 2023 for mishandling user data transfers between Europe and the United States.
SEE: EU Fines Meta Nearly €800 Million for Facebook Marketplace Practices and Advertising Data Violations
Tech giants push back
Meta is not alone in its concern. In September 2024, representatives from Meta along with Spotify, SAP, Ericsson, Klarna, and more major firms signed an open letter urging Europe regulators to address “inconsistent regulatory decision-making” and unpredictable compliance demands.
President Trump has previously criticised the EU for its regulatory stance against Apple, Google, Meta, and other U.S. tech firms. At the World Economic Forum in January, he said “they’re American companies, and they shouldn’t be doing that,” and that “it’s a form of taxation.”
Vice President JD Vance took aim at European governance of social media activity during his speech at the Munich conference, referring to it as “dismissing voters’ concerns, shutting down their media” and “the most surefire way to destroy democracy.” He also disparaged Europe’s use of “excessive regulation” at the Paris AI Summit last week.
Meta’s changing approach
Kaplan, a Republican strategist who replaced Nick Clegg as Meta’s policy lead after Trump assumed office, framed social media regulation as a direct challenge to free speech.
“We don’t want misinformation,” Kaplan said, according to Bloomberg. “People have different perspectives of what is misinformation and what is not.”
Last month, Meta revealed that it was discontinuing its third-party fact-checking program in place of a “Community Notes” system, allowing users on its platforms to add context to posts they believe are misleading. It said it would relocate its content moderation teams from California to Texas to “help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content.”
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Regulatory standoff on AI
Beyond social media and data privacy, Meta has also clashed with the E.U. over AI regulations.
In June 2024, it delayed the training of its large language models on public content shared on Facebook and Instagram after regulators suggested it might need explicit consent from content owners. As a result, Meta AI, its flagship AI assistant, has still not been released within the bloc due to its “unpredictable” regulations.
Kaplan indicated that Meta would not be signing the E.U. ‘s voluntary General-Purpose AI Code of Practice due to be published at the end of April.
EU stands firm
Despite Meta’s pushback, E.U. officials remain resolute. Teresa Ribera, the E.U. ‘s Commissioner for Competitiveness, told Reuters that decisions on whether Meta has complied with the bloc’s rules will not be delayed from next month as a result of pushback. She also said that U.S. authorities should “enter the negotiating table” and not resort to “bullying.”
