Mark Zuckerberg Can Already Protect Facebook User Information, He Just Won’t

Of the many things about the recent betrayals of user privacy that Facebook has been involved in, one of the most galling aspects of every single incident is that Mark Zuckerberg could have prevented any one of them. The social network has already proven that it has the technology to protect user data the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It just won’t extend this protection to everyone.

In a recent report by Reuters, the publication reveals that Zuckerberg has refused to apply the same level of privacy protection that his company is already providing to the users in the EU. The GDPR was actually pushed by authorities in order to protect European users from the same kinds of privacy threats that U.S. customers were recently revealed to have been subjected to.

It’s scheduled to take effect next month and this is only the case because regulators in the union gave Facebook no choice on the matter. When the publication asked Zuckerberg if he plans on rolling out the same level of protection to the users in other countries, he said that a modified version of it would be.

“We’re still nailing down details on this, but it should directionally be, in spirit, the whole thing,” Zuckerberg said.

As Futurism notes, the EU had 257 million Facebook users in 2017. That number would have gone up by now, which meant that the social network had much to lose if the union’s commissioners decided to crack down on it for its bad behavior.

Sadly, American users are not afforded the same level of protection that those in Europe have been granted by their leaders. Without the intervention of the right legislation, having their privacy rights violated and the personal information stolen is something that Facebook users everywhere outside of the EU can expect to be a regular event.