Can GDPR and Facebook Losses Boost Decentralized Social Media?

Too Long; Didn't Read

When the European Union’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) went into effect last June, analysts expected the regulation will affect social media giants like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-revenues-gdpr-2018-4" target="_blank">Facebook</a>. Before GDPR, Facebook used to have a better legal ground to aggregate its users’ data and use it for targeted advertising. Currently, almost all of Facebook’s huge revenue comes from advertisement. While it was pretty clear GDPR was going to affect Facebook’s revenue, <a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/4/25/17282612/facebook-gdpr-europe-user-growth-impact" target="_blank">Facebook in their Q1 earning call tried to downplay these expectation</a>s. However, fast forward 3 months in Q2 earning call, Facebook CFO informed investors they should expect a significant decline in Facebook’s revenue growth rates. The expected decline is due to a <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-stock-crushed-after-revenue-user-growth-miss-2018-07-25" target="_blank">combination of factors</a> like increasing data security expenses, Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal and the decline of the number of European users because of GDPR.