You can turn the same thing around, no one is forcing Facebook to do business in Germany. If they want to do business in Germany they have to follow German regulations.
Wouldn't this argument justify almost any government law or control? It's true that Facebook should follow the law of generally free or democratic nations. That doesn't change whether or not the law is good or bad, and whether or not they should fight it.
It's not the same thing at all, because the German regulations would be stopping two consenting parties from interacting with each other, while Facebook does not such thing (it just prevents some from interacting with Facebook itself).
EDIT: People assuming that I'm against all kinds of such regulations: cut that out, I never claimed that.
The 800 pound gorilla Facebook and the average German teenage girl (to name just an example) aren't exactly equal consenting parties.
The law is there to protect individual citizens against the ruthless exploitation by major corporations like Facebook.
Especially when those corporations hold the key to either social isolation or abandoning your civil rights. The laws are there to prevent companies from abusing their power from effectively undermining individual people's rights and freedoms.
I never said it can never be justified. I live in the EU and agree with most of our consumer protection laws. I'm just drawing an important distinction.
Not participating in a transaction is a personal issue, which doesn't need justification. Not letting others participate in it should need to be very well justified, at least in a State that is supposed to be democratic and just.
Personally, and in this particular case, I find the justification lacking.
That's precisely correct. Forcing Facebook to accept pseudonymous users represents a fundamental change in the nature of the service. Facebook can and should suspend service in Germany. It's unfair to users from other countries to have a bunch of anonymous idiots spouting off.
That's funny because half of my German FB friends (mostly female though) are using a pseudonym. A popular convention is to leave off half the letters of the first and last name each. So Hans Meier would be "Ha Me". These guys are writing the least inane postings in my news feed.
I don't know anything about German regs but couldn't facebook say: 'we reserve the right to kick you off our service for whatever reason we choose or no reason at all.
p.s. We prefer that you use your real name'?
Company proceeds to only hire men, despite women with similar or better qualifications applying. Company then sued for obvious gender discrimination, illegal in the US.
