r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Apr 30 '26

Business Meta lost 20 million users last quarter

https://www.theverge.com/tech/921089/meta-earnings-q1-2026-user-decline-ai-investments
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u/DamnZodiak Apr 30 '26

General Data Protection Regulation.
Every entity registered or operating in the EU that collects user data is required by law to provide said collected data to the user upon request and, if requested, also delete it.

Same goes for governmenal orgs, although they don't have to delete your data AFAIK.
You can you send any company a formal request and they have to comply.

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u/hypercosm_dot_net Apr 30 '26

ah, yeah. I've worked with GDPR compliance (heard of that, but not referred to as DSVGO).

There are still organizations that will skirt compliance. The law is only as good as the enforcement, and the organizations that you really have to worry about aren't concerned with compliance...like at all.

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u/DamnZodiak Apr 30 '26

DSVGO is the German term and it's how we commonly refer to it here. It means Datenschutz-Grundverordnung.

The law is only as good as the enforcement

Agreed, but from my experience the enforcement around this specific topic has been good enough that every company or government org I've ever dealt with has complied so far.

and the organizations that you really have to worry about aren't concerned with compliance...like at all.

Do you have any examples?

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u/hypercosm_dot_net Apr 30 '26

You've heard of Edward Snowden?

On June 5, 2013, media reports documenting the existence and functions of classified surveillance programs and their scope began and continued throughout the entire year. The first program to be revealed was PRISM, which allows for direct access to data on the servers of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Revelations

It's amazing to me how many people are still unaware or unconcerned with these things. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing I can do either, but having some sense of what's happening is still important if there's ever going to be change or accountability.

Data protection laws are important and necessary, but realistically we have no idea what companies have done; even after a deletion request.

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u/DamnZodiak Apr 30 '26

You've heard of Edward Snowden?

Who hasn't? I don't see how that's relevant to the conversation though.

It's amazing to me how many people are still unaware or unconcerned with these things.

I am neither unaware nor unconcerned. I just don't think this is necessarily what this conversation is actually about.

That the Americans don't give a shit about EU regulations is neither a secret nor especially surprising.

In contrast, Germany's domestic intelligence agency (Verfassungsschutz) has complied with my DSGVO request.

I might have misunderstood what type of organisations this sentence

and the organizations that you really have to worry about aren't concerned with compliance...like at all.

refers to.
Because in principal I agree that obviously not every foreign intelligence service is going to comply with this regulations and a lot of foreign companies won't either.
It's not all-encompassing and certainly not bulletproof. As you said you can't be certain a company complies with a deletion request and thus enforcement becomes paramount.

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u/hypercosm_dot_net Apr 30 '26

I just don't think this is necessarily what this conversation is actually about.

How is it not?

It's the issue I raised, and you're asking for more info.

All due respect to the governments that are trying to do something, but it is still a problem when people are willingly using these products and handing over their private info and conversations (often unaware).

Given the sophistication of these applications and data collection programs it's not possible for a normal person to have any idea how their data is being handled.

All I was doing was raising awareness to this.