[3np]

So instead of making their system less-privacy-invasive (which I have seen no indication should be impossible wrt the APIs mentioned here), they just shut down services where this is regulated.

Not surprised, but there's no way to spin this in a way that doesn't make Facebook look shady and bad. So much for "working with regulators".

[matthewmacleod]

It does say:

"We are currently working to restore these features and will continue to update this document and the changelog section with the details as they are available."

Doesn't this suggest that they aren't being shut-down?

[the8472]

Various websites not available in europe are saying stuff like

> Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market.

and have done so for years.

Facebook's "currently" may be worth as much as the "engaged" and "committed" of those sites.

[diggan]

It might be temporary, but removing features "temporary" certainly sounds like being shut down, but temporary.

Interesting that Facebook and everyone else has been knowing that these rules have been coming for years, they still haven't been ready. Certainly reads like they haven't been working with anyone, and their last resort is now to temporary shut down the features they were unable to fix, during these years.

[fatnoah]

>Interesting that Facebook and everyone else has been knowing that these rules have been coming for years, they still haven't been ready.

There's being ready, but I think there's also some wariness that the penalties for non-compliance are so severe that it's not worth taking the risk.

When GDPR was first being proposed, I was at a startup in the messaging space, and we were in the midst of expanding into European markets. The level of effort to ensure compliance wasn't that high, but without established case law and a history of enforcement actions, it was deemed too much of a risk so we pulled back.

[oblio]

As the other commenters have said about GDPR, it could also be polite-speak for "never" (or "until we can lobby our way to new laws").

[theobeers]

That reminds me of the many local and regional newspapers in the US that are owned by Tribune Publishing, and whose websites have been inaccessible in Europe since the GDPR went into effect. You'll be met with the following disclaimer:

"Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism."

Ok, I'm sure it'll be any day now…

[Lammy]

It's PR-speak to make the regulators look like the bad guys who took something from you that always-benevolent FB is working on your behalf to restore.

[that_guy_iain]

To honest, I think this is probably the begining of the end for Facebook. I foresee that they'll be forced to reduce services in Europe repeatedly. It'll be interesting to see what takes its place.

[_fat_santa]

It might be the bigginning of the end of Facebook dot com, but Facebook as a company I feel will be here for a while. Facebook used to just be Facebook dot com but they've since become almost a tech conglomerate. The big tech firms are basically just holding companies for all the stuff they've acquired over the years.

[that_guy_iain]

Yea, once you're that size even if you're struggling you're around for decades.

[trumpeta]

they'll end up preying on the people in 3rd world countries that don't have strong privacy legislation. Same way as Phillip Morris did with cigarettes...

[oblio]

It's still good if you minimize their impact.

A similar example is sending garbage to China. At a certain point China stopped accepting it. Hopefully soon others will do the same and recycling will be tackled correctly.

[marcosdumay]

Good luck for them in competing with somebody that has the network effect of being available everywhere.

[somedude895]

The network effects has its limits. Messengers and social media platforms have so far resisted a winner-takes-all situation. Since social networks are still more often than not rooted within geographical boundaries, it's possible for competitors to coexist on a global level.

[grishka]

It'll be definitely interesting to see what Facebook is going to do if one of those bills that would require it to federate and/or provide an open API gets passed.

[paganel]

I don’t see FB shutting down a service like Watsapp in Europe in the next decade at least, first of all because countless European politicians use it, to say nothing of the hundreds of millions of Europeans who use it regularly. There’s nothing else comparable that can take its place.

[derin]

Telegram? Signal? Viber? Matrix?

I feel like all of these apps (with special emphasis on Telegram and Signal) have almost the exact same UX and features of WhatsApp... beyond adoption numbers.

Surely one of these can take its place?

[toomuchtodo]

Matrix is used by the French government [1] and the German military [2]. I’m honestly surprised Matrix isn’t robustly funded by the EU yet as an open competitor to US Big Tech.

[1] https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23152780

[oblio]

Telegram, I think Signal, too. There are alternatives, they're just not as popular now.

[stingraycharles]

Telegram may be getting momentum, but it’s nothing near the usage of WhatsApp over here. Signal nobody knows anything about, there’s nobody on there.

[jeltz]

I think this is very local. Here in Sweden I have only ever met one person who used Whatsapp. I feel most people use Facebook messenger with some use of Skype, Google Hangouts, Telegram, Signal and Slack.

[oblio]

In at least France, Romania, Luxembourg, Italy, Germany, WhatsApp is very popular.

By popular I mean "small businesses start advertising contacting them through WhatsApp"-popular.

It would be nice to have a breakdown of these numbers but we'll probably never get them from FB.

[hombre_fatal]

Do telcos in US/Europe create the same incumbency that telcos in Latin America create?

Here in Mexico, any mobile data package comes with free data for blessed services like Whatsapp and FB Messenger. Obviously trying to compete with each other on these perks.

Using a competitor like Telegram is a complete nonstarter when trading memes or video chat eats into your data. The cheapest plan from Telcel (pay-as-you-go + holding 20 pesos in your balance) lets you use Whatsapp infinitely.

GG to competition.

[jeltz]

In Sweden they do not do that for messenger clients but they do it for video streaming sites. Data is so cheap here that a messenger would not be a good selling point.

It is probably illegal (on the paper we have net neutrality, the telcos just blatantly break the law) to do so in Sweden which why some telcos are in a legal battle with our regulatory authority.

[hombre_fatal]

Heh, my cable TV provider in Mexico came with a remote control with a fat "Netflix" button on it for easy access.

While useful to people, most of whom want to just go to Netflix, that level of integration doesn't feel right.

[robin_reala]

It’s not illegal if you get user consent. I signed up (in Sweden) for a mobile contract with free Apple Music data last year, and they made a big thing of getting consent for them to do DPI to get that.

[oblio]

They do the same thing here, yes.

But if the EU decides to legislate against FB, for example, I doubt they'll be that silly, they'll probably shoot these clauses down.

[input_sh]

> There's nothing else comparable that can take its place.

Nothing that can replace WhatsApp? A simple messaging app like hundreds of others out there? If they shut down tomorrow I don't think anyone would be impacted. People would just switch to one of those. Nobody in 5-10 years would be like "I miss WhatsApp".

[that_guy_iain]

Is WhatsApps a money generator for Facebook? I would have thought it was just a service they bought to stop someone else buying it.

[KIFulgore]

They're trying to monetize WhatsApp through their Business API. They have a directory of Business Service Providers that can provide API access and integration services. Their partnership model is very convoluted and flawed, though, and it's hurting adoption.

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/

[paride5745]

Not yet, they are obviously moving into merging WhatsApp with Messenger/Instagram Direct, but it looks like these recent actions against FB (US Congress questioning monopolistic practices, FB having promises it would not merge WhatsApp with FB Messenger at the time of acquisition, and various privacy investigations from EU countries) are making FB go very very slow on this.

Therefore, so far FB only collects contacts and improves its social network (in the technical sense) with WhatsApp.

[bzb6]

What makes you think the APIs could be changed to comply? Maybe there’s no way to implement what they used to do legally.

[asutekku]

You can see what API calls do not work on the listed page. Most of those should not require any privacy breaking features so it should absolutely be possible to implement them legally. They just don't like to do so.

[red_admiral]

This is just speculation on my part, but if facebook implemented these API calls in a privacy-respecting way for the EU market, then it would be very easy for the US government to suggest that the already-existing privacy-respecting version should be used in their jurisdiction too. Maybe that's what facebook wants to avoid?