Meta warned that its record $1.3 billion fine sets a 'dangerous precedent' when the internet is already 'fracturing under pressure from authoritarian regimes'

• Meta was handed a record $1.3 billion fine by the European Union on Monday.
• That was over concerns that Facebook data transferred to the US could be used to spy on European citizens.
• Meta executives slammed the ruling as "unjustified" and referenced authoritarian censorship.

Meta warned that its record $1.3 billion fine "sets a dangerous precedent" related to online freedoms in a statement released Monday.

The tech giant was handed the biggest-ever fine for privacy violations in the European Union after being previously warned not to transfer the data of Facebook users in Europe to the US, over concerns American security agencies could use it to spy on Europeans.

Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, and Jennifer Newstead, its chief legal officer, said the ruling is "flawed, unjustified and sets a dangerous precedent" in the company's response.

Clegg, who was Britain's deputy prime minister for five years, was a member of the European Parliament until 2004 and later campaigned against Brexit, before losing his seat in the UK Parliament in 2017.

"The ability for data to be transferred across borders is fundamental to how the global open internet works," Meta's statement said.

Companies have been in limbo over data protection rules since 2020, when the EU stopped a pact which regulated data transfers across the Atlantic.

That was over fears that data in the US could be accessed by the likes of the National Security Agency, dating back to 2013 when Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the extent of spying there, per Bloomberg.

"At a time where the internet is fracturing under pressure from authoritarian regimes, like-minded democracies should work together to promote and defend the idea of the open internet," the statement added.

Last October, President Joe Biden signed an executive order which limited the ability of American agencies to access people's personal information. But that still needs approval from EU lawmakers.

"No country has done more than the US to align with European rules via their latest reforms, while transfers continue largely unchallenged to countries such as China," Meta said.

The EU's ruling comes amid tensions surrounding TikTok's use of data because it is part-owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.

To try to allay those concerns, TikTok has opened new data centers in Europe and the US in initiatives codenamed "Project Clover" and "Project Texas" respectively. The company says that means those users' information can't be accessed by the Chinese government.

But TikTok has still been banned for government employees in several countries, as well as for all citizens in Montana beginning next January.

Meta has been given a five-month grace period to stop transferring Facebook users' data to the US. The company says it intends to appeal the decision.