Meta hit with ~$275M GDPR penalty for Facebook data-scraping breach • TechCrunch
TechCrunchOct 16, 2022
The Facts
Beginning Aug. 14, Norway's data protection authority will fine Facebook's parent company Meta 1M krone ($98.5k) per day for privacy breaches, including harvesting users' locations and using them for targeted advertising.
This comes after the watchdog, known as Datatilsynet, warned last month that it would temporarily ban Meta's tracking and profiling of users in the country, adding that if it continued the company would risk being fined.
The Spin
Establishment-critical narrative
Meta has clearly been deceitful in getting "permission" to track Norwegians' locations and other sensitive data, which is why the government's privacy regulator has had to step in. Vulnerable Facebook and Instagram users — most notably children — have unwittingly signed up to be watched by this tech giant, so it may be time for the entire continent to start fining Meta until it finally offers a genuine, easy-to-understand consent form.
Pro-establishment narrative
What regulators don't understand is that if they ban targeted advertising, the cost of social media would jump tremendously — and, obviously, the poor and less fortunate would be impacted most by those costs. We cannot forget how social media companies gave previously unheard people a voice and previously isolated people access to economic opportunity.
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