This a huge step back for transparency with Meta (shocker). Access to this data is important for a variety of reasons, and using the recent EU laws as an excuse is deplorable (again, shocker from Meta).
It's clear the data companies were left alone for too long to rule the schoolyard. It's going to take some time to treat them and others what decorum looks like without throwing an absolute hissy fit.
Here's hoping the EU, which seems to be the only teacher on the playground willing to discipline anyone, will set them straight.
We should teach critical thinking and logic skill from month one. There will be so much propaganda and misinformation from this point on, being able to spot it, most of the time with common sense, would nip most of this crap in the butt.
We should outlaw political advertisement on social media? Kind of like how cigarette advertisement was eliminated from movie theater ads.
The fines should be stacked as factors - unmitigated offenses will build up and incur exponentially growing fines. Very large incentive to shut that shit down.
Politics should be advertised by performance review, not marketing.
My hope is that the FBI asked them to shut this down on NSA's behalf, so threat actors feel more comfortable as they aren't being watched, studied, and analyzed by every OSINT collective in existence.
My fear is that they know what happened the previous 2 elections and this year will be the worst yet, and they don't want their users knowing how badly they got duped and feeling bad/dumb enough to leave the platform. Also advertising $$.