alt Hacker NewsThe thing is, the EU needs to be able to not only sell that the regulation they propose is good to the public, but also not piss off the US administration.
Most people are too non-technical to understand why this is a bad thing even when it's explained to them. Plus, whatever administration is in power in the US has a lot of influence.
Trump has already said that he wouldn't tolerate regulation that affects American companies [1], painting regulation that happens in another country as something that will affect US citizens. (I mean if you use the GDPR as an example, it's not wrong. Think of cookie pop ups while browsing the web in the US)
I would like the the EU would go harder with their regulations, because it usually results in other countries or states following their lead, but I dont see that happening. Regulation has been painted as "bad", and we have at least 3 more years until that changes.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/12/tech/us-eu-tech-regulation-fi...
> rump has already said that he wouldn't tolerate regulation that affects American companies
This lays bare the stupidity of applying the pay-or-consent law to only Facebook and not everyone. Every important newspaper in Europe has pay-or-consent. It does not matter that each one individually is smaller, the effect is the same.
The law was carefully crafted to ensure European businesses (newspapers) are not "gatekeepers" while ensuring American businesses (social networks) are. That fact did not go unnoticed in the rest of the world.