A former Facebook lobbyist is now in charge of the EU's Facebook regulator

A former Meta (Facebook) lobbyist, Niamh Sweeney, has been appointed as a commissioner of the Data Protection Commission (DPC), the EU's chief regulator for big tech firms. Sweeney previously worked at Meta for six years, serving as the director of European public policy at WhatsApp and the head of Irish public policy at Facebook. The appointment has raised concerns, as the DPC has a reputation for being lenient towards big tech companies, with the organization only managing to collect around 0.6 percent of the billions of dollars in fines levied toward tech companies, including Meta itself. The company was fined nearly $300 million after a data breach and another $100 million for storing passwords in plain text, which is a violation of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The Irish government's decision to appoint a former Meta lobbyist as a DPC commissioner has been criticized, with some arguing that it undermines the EU's efforts to enforce data protection laws effectively.