Here’s my bold statement for 2023: Social media companies in the United States need to be regulated. Before you start agreeing and explain why it’ll never happen… you should know Meta didn’t launch Threads in the EU. Because of the EU’s REGULATION. It would have led to massive NEW fines and Meta doesn’t want MORE massive fines. It was recently hit with an order to stop sending EU users data to the US for processing and was fined almost $1.3BN for breaching the GDPR’s requirements on data export. When companies’ actions or inactions harm the public, the public demands something be done. In the EU they’ve recognized the harm being done by social media companies and enacted regulation. Short term, companies pay the fine and change their behavior to stop new fines. This is what we want, what the public deserves. Protection from harm. Here’s a good piece by Natasha Lomas’ in Tech Cruch that spells out Meta’s current privacy problems and reminds us of the General Data Protection Regulation, the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act. Some regulations are currently in effect others are coming on August 25, 2023. Meta’s Threads app is a privacy nightmare that won’t launch in EU yet, TechCrunch July 5, 5th 2023 Here’s the deal, regulations force companies to change their behaviors. If they don’t, they pay a fine. Big fines gets their attention AND, if they are a public company, it gets the attention of the big shareholders who say “Stop the bleeding! Keep that…