TechScape: Warnings of a ‘splinternet’ were greatly exaggerated – until now
In this week's newsletter: Facebook has been hit with a 1.2bn fine by EU regulators, and the cracks in the fault lines of data regulations are showing. Could that be a good thing?
Does the growing online muscle of the European Union mean the long-awaited arrival of real privacy online, or the creation of a splinternet" as international borders begin to make their presence known online as well as off?
It's an increasingly crucial question. On Monday, Facebook was handed a record fine for a GDPR breach. The social network's parent company, Meta, was hit with a bill for more than a billion pounds over its ongoing data transfers from the EU to the US. From our story:
The [Irish Data Protection Commission] punishment relates to a legal challenge brought by an Austrian privacy campaigner, Max Schrems, over concerns resulting from the Edward Snowden revelations that European users' data is not sufficiently protected from US intelligence agencies when it is transferred across the Atlantic.
Meta has also been given six months to stop the unlawful processing, including storage, in the US" of personal EU data already transferred across the Atlantic, meaning that user data will need to be removed from Facebook servers.
A number of experts who spoke to Wired suspect that Google is using Bard to send a message that the EU's laws around privacy and online safety aren't to its liking. But more than this, it could be a sign that generative AI technology as it exists now is fundamentally incompatible with existing and developing privacy and online safety laws in the EU.
The uncertainty around Bard's rollout in the region comes as the bloc's lawmakers are negotiating new draft rules to govern artificial intelligence via the fledgling AI Act. A number of existing laws, from GDPR to the Digital Services Act (DSA), may also be holding up the rollout of generative AI systems in the bloc.
The UK government risks sleepwalking into a confrontation with WhatsApp that could lead to the messaging app disappearing from Britain, ministers have been warned, with options for an amicable resolution fast running out.
Montana's new law, which will take effect 1 January, prohibits downloads of TikTok in the state and would fine any entity" - an app store or TikTok - $10,000 per day for each time someone is offered the ability" to access the social media platform or download the app. The penalties would not apply to users.
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