Increasingly of the view that regulation supposedly designed to improve the behaviour of big tech companies actually strengthens them by creating impossible barriers to entry and criminalising the non-corporate web.
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An example of this is the sudden flourishing of “consent or pay” or “pay or okay” models for websites and platforms. Those, like say the Guardian or Facebook, that force you to accept data harvesting or pay money.
Meta has spent a fortune pushing this model as legitimate in the courts (and, we can assume, lobbies), even though it runs contrary to the principles of the EU and UK data protection regimes regarding forced consent. And now it’s ubiquitous.
https://noyb.eu/en/frequently-asked-questions-about-pay-or-okay
Whilst at the same time, Elon Musk has spent the entire time since he bought Twitter telling the EU to go piss up a rope and X still pumps out toxic sludge all over the EU with few obstacles.
Almost every concern people have about social media relates to the behaviour of either Meta, Twitter or TikTok.
No-one gives a fuck about Mastodon, partly because we’d struggle to find enough people for a five a side football match.
And yet the relatively well-behaved, self-regulating amateurs have to comply with the laws meant to deal with companies owned by multiple billionaires.
How much money are you able to spend on compliance and lawyers? None? Oh well, what a shame. Meta has fucking billions.