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Great news for Facebook: 2018 is over.
Bad news: 2019 is just beginning.
In this new year, the company's apology will give way to its responsibility, and fines or regulatory measures may be applied. Mark Zuckerberg, president of Facebook – Photo: AP Photo / Marcio Jose Sanchez "src =" data: image / jpeg; base64, / 9j / 4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD / 2wBDAAMCAgMCAgMDAwMEAwMEBQgFBQQEBQoHBwYIDAoMDAsKCwsNDhIQDQ4RDgsLEBYQERMUFRUVDA8XGBYUGBIUFRT / 2wBDAQMEBAUEBQkFBQkUDQsNFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBT / wgARCAAQABkDASIAAhEBAxEB / 8QAFgABAQEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABQYH / 8QAFQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAb / 2gAMAwEAAhADEAAAAcXrZKlsziCuDCX / AP / EAB0QAAIBBAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQFAgABAxEGFTP / 2gAIAQEAAQUCOlLJPjye5wzVfJcXqjPRU260ZmbYsndf / 8QAGREAAQUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQIDEBEh / 9oACAEDAQE / AdUyKj // xAAaEQACAgMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQMSAgQh / 9oACAECAQE / AdVqKTosrqx 8QAIRAAAgEDAwUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQIRAAMSECFRBBNBcXL // / // 2gAIAQEABj8Ct5GSFia6i4qZ9tSx9U1po5EaJ80Vt3nm6CHRBG3FOMlbDYYjxp xAAdEAEBAAICAwEAAAAAAAAAAAABEQAhEEExUWFx / 9oACAEBAAE / IUKE6Np9e86dpZo / uVrMLaRKcdcCUbm4ryexwSBd0J6b + 3h 9oADAMBAAIAAwAAABB83 // // EABcRAQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAEAESH / 2gAIAQMBAT8QCAJnL // EAB0RAQEAAgEFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAERACFBMVFhcZH / 2gAIAQIBAT8QvYGaUUHVsHih5TN16vYh849Z / 8QAHhABAAICAgMBAAAAAAAAAAAAAR EhADFBYVFxgbH / 2gAIAQEAAT8QPUKIBFg2IKFuAODBctepVnYpvUuqyEaPS28QXDD2OeuKI + H64lingQAxgt1qL3hEzViZkgW23bzn1n // 2Q == "/>
What exactly does this mean? What kind of punishment can the social media giant face? The BBC explains what can happen to Facebook over the next 12 months:
It could be punishable by a hefty fine in the EU …
The Irish Data Protection Commission announced in December that, several notifications of faults "on Facebook, opened an investigation on the company (after this one informed about the correction of a bug that resulted in the publication of private photos of 6.8 million The consequences are potentially enormous – since it is the main regulator of this sector in the European Union. severely punish companies that do not protect users' personal data.
"The focus will be on the security measures and procedures put in place by Facebook," said Kate Colleary, executive director of the company. IAPP, an organization an international organization dedicated to the protection of personal data. "If they have been disabled, there may be an 'administrative discovery'."
"Administrative questioning" would, in other words, be a possible decision of the Data Protection Commission with heavy fines. Under a regulation in force since last May, a company could be fined up to 4% of its overall business figure. In the case of Facebook, that would be more than $ 1.5 billion.
That might not stop there. As investigations in Ireland progress, the US Federal Trade Commission also examines how Facebook signed an agreement signed in 2011. Overall, the agreement prompted Facebook to obtain explicit and informed consent for collection and sharing. The company has repeatedly stated that it has not failed to comply with the agreement, known as the "consent decree". In both cases, the federal commission examines the case.
If a violation is identified in the terms, the penalties are, in theory, astronomical: the "Consent Decree" provides for fines of $ 40,000 per day for the violation.
If a potential violation concerns the 80 million Facebook users in the United States, the figure reaches $ 3 trillion.
But it is unlikely that we will achieve that. The goal of the commission is not to break American companies, but to discourage inappropriate behavior. In an interview with the Washington Post, David Vladeck, a former consumer protection official for the same commission, said any fine should be in the range of $ 1 billion.
"The agency (in reference to the commission) will want to send the message that … takes its consent decree very seriously," he told the newspaper.
One view that seems to have multiparty support – in different countries around the world – is that Facebook has become very big and very powerful.
"We have a lot of competitors," said Mark Zuckerberg during his appearance before the US Senate in April 2018. But he did not mention any of these competitors. With WhatsApp and Instagram being part of the company, there is actually no alternative to Facebook – and if it were, the company would probably buy it.
A specific activist group, Freedom from Facebook, asks the company to be divided into four: the main Facebook network, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger. It also makes it easier for users to migrate their data from one network to another if they want to disconnect from one of them.
According to the newspaper New Stateman, Facebook recruits experts in competition law and is preparing to launch urgent appeals for its activities to be split into smaller elements.
The company also hired a senior British politician – Nick Clegg, former deputy prime minister – to head the Communication in October.
In interviews with reporters, Clegg said that he would focus his efforts on the idea of "co-regulation", that is to say, to work with the governments to create regulations that are technically and ethically sound.
But he was criticized by Ahmed Banafa, privacy specialist at San Jose State University, California, saying the authorities "must act independently (vis-à-vis Facebook) because they take care of us, citizens, "and not companies."
"I do not want to vote for Facebook's regulation," Mark Zuckerberg told US Senator John Kennedy in April. "But I'll do it it will depend on you … Your terms of use are very bad. "
In Washington, we have the feeling that Facebook ended up being able to solve its own problems, and Facebook repeated to many times that it was open to regulation as long as it was "just" regulation that would not affect the ability of people to communicate freely online.
And what kind of regulation can this It's a report by Democratic Senator Mark Warner – vice chairman of the Senate's Intelligence Committee – could provide the most consistent argument for the future.
In general, the senator wants to force social networks to open for an academic audit; improve the portability of data so that users can migrate more easily from one service to another; and to have more transparency about stored personal data, what they are used for and by whom.
You see that this type of measure would affect not only Facebook, but also all platforms that use personal data – Google and the company will also closely follow the topic.
For now, Facebook says support the law on honest advertising, which requires sites to specify the source of funding for political or related announcements. It would be a good start, but not enough. US lawmakers have seen the adoption of the EU's general data protection regulation (approved in May and described by its creators as "the most significant change in regulation over the past 20 years in the field of data protection"). confidentiality ") and thinking:" it is possible to do ".
Users may not be as attentive as they are.
Facebook continues to grow, but not in areas where it has been hit by serious scandals. It has stopped growing in the United States and saw their number decrease in Europe.
Will this continue? Can you go further? Something anecdotal: more and more people are counting, on social networks, of course, on how they get away from Facebook, by deleting the account or removing the application of their mobile phone.
But we will only have official statistics after Jan. 30, when the company will announce its next income plans.
In April 2018, a study conducted by the Creative Strategies badysis firm of nearly 1,000 Facebook users – following the Cambridge Analytica scandal – which had access to various data from the platform – but before that other revolutionary revelations are revealed from data. As a result, 31% intend to use Facebook less in the future. We will see.
