There’s no way to sugarcoat this message: Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg believes North America users of his platform deserve a lower data protection standard than people everywhere else in the world.
In a phone interview with Reuters yesterday Mark Zuckerberg declined to commit to universally implementing changes to the platform that are necessary to comply with the European Union’s incoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Rather, he said the company was working on a version of the law that would bring some European privacy guarantees worldwide — declining to specify to the reporter which parts of the law would not extend worldwide.
“We’re still nailing down details on this, but it should directionally be, in spirit, the whole thing,” Reuters quotes Zuckerberg on the GDPR question.
Facebook to exclude North American users from some privacy enhancements
"Directionally be, in spirit, the whole thing" sounds to me like it'll be very far from the whole thing which is unfortunate for North American (or really anyone outside Europe) users. It would be far easier and faster for Facebook to just implement GDPR for everyone. If there was ever any doubt, this should be the final evidence. Facebook will not change it's behaviour.