After all, the tech companies that pretend to be Irish have no loyalty to the country - they are there solely because Ireland will help them cheat the rest of the world. What's more, any company that can hire lawyers to do the paperwork to let it pretend that it's Irish this week could pay those lawyers to pretend that it is Cypriot, or Maltese, or Dutch, or Luxembourgeois next week.

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To keep these American companies from skipping town, Ireland must bend its entire justice system to the facilitation of *all* of American tech companies' crimes.

Of course, there is no class of crime that American tech companies commit more flagrantly or consequentially than the systematic, ruthless invasion of our privacy.

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Nine years ago, the EU passed the landmark General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a big, muscular privacy law that bans virtually all of the data-collection undertaken by America's tech companies. However, because these companies pretend they are Irish, they have been able to move all GDPR enforcement to Ireland, where the Data Protection Commissioner could always be relied upon to let these companies get away with murder:

pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/fin…

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If you have formed the (widespread) opinion that the GDPR is worse than useless, responsible for nothing more than an endless stream of bullshit "cookie consent" pop-ups, blame the Irish DPC. American tech companies have pretended that they are allowed to substitute these cookie popups for doing the thing the GDPR demands on them (not spying on you at all).

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This is an obvious violation of the GDPR, and the only way an enforcer could possibly fail to see this is if they served a government whose entire economy depended on keeping Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai happy. It's impossible to explain something to a regulator when their paycheck depends on them not understanding it.

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Incredibly, Ireland has found a way to make this awful situation *even worse*. They've appointed Niamh Sweeney, an ex-Meta lobbyist, to the role of Irish Data Protection Commissioner. Her resume includes "six years at Meta, according to her LinkedIn profile. She was head of public policy, Ireland for Facebook before becoming WhatsApp’s director of public policy for Europe, Middle East and Africa":

irishtimes.com/business/2025/0…

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Ex-tech lobbyist named as Ireland’s new Data Protection Commissioner

Niamh Sweeney to take up role in October

^{Peter Flanagan (The Irish Times)}

In their complaint to the European Commission, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties lays out a devastating case against Sweeney's fitness to serve - the fact that she has broad, deep, obvious conflicts of interest that should automatically disqualify her from the role:

iccl.ie/digital-data/complaint…

Among other things, Meta execs - like Sweeney - are given piles of stock options and shares in the company.

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Complaint v Ireland to European Commission re process appointing ex-Meta lobbyist as Data Protection Commissioner

Lack of safeguards against conflict of interest and political interference will be interpreted by the tech industry as a signal of impunity…

^{Johnny Ryan (Irish Council for Civil Liberties)}

The decisions that Sweeney will be called upon to make as DPC will have a significant and lasting negative effect on Meta's stocks - if Meta is banned from surveilling 500m affluent European consumers, they will make a *lot* less money.

But that's just for starters. Meta execs also sign contracts that bind them to:

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* Nondisparagement: ex-Meta executives are permanently barred from "making any disparaging, crucial or otherwise detrimental comments to any person or entity concerning [Meta's] products, services or programs; its business affairs, operation, management and financial condition..."

* Nondisclosure: ex-Meta executives are broadly prohibited from discussing their employment, or disclosing the things they learned while working at the company.

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* Forced arbitration: if Meta believes that a former exec has violated these clauses, they can order the former exec to be silent, and bill them tens of thousands of dollars every time they speak out. Former executives sign away the right to contest these fines and orders in front of a judge; instead, all claims are heard by an "arbitrator" - a corporate lawyer who is paid by Meta and is in charge of deciding whether Meta (who pays their invoices) is right or wrong.

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We know about these contractual terms because they have been applied to Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former top Meta exec who published a whistleblower memoir, *Careless People*, which discloses many of Meta's most terrible practices, from systemic sexual harassment at the highest echelon to a worldwide surveillance collaboration with the Chinese government to complicity in the Rohingya genocide.

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Then there's the fact that Mark Zuckerberg cheats at Settlers of Catan and his underlings let him win:

pluralistic.net/2025/04/23/zuc…

Meta dragged Wynn-Williams in front of Meta's pet arbitrator over the statements in her book (without disputing their truthfulness). The arbitrator has fined Wynn-Williams $111,000,000 for speaking out ($50,000 per violation), and has barred her from promoting her book in any way.

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The company has ordered her not to testify before the US Congress or the UK Parliament. The clauses in Wynn-Williams contract are very similar (if not identical) to the clauses that the US National Labor Relations Board ruled unenforceable:

hcamag.com/us/specialization/e…

Wynn-Williams appeared on stage with me last month at London's Barbican Centre, in a book-tour event moderated by Chris Morris.

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NLRB rules Meta's 7,200 confidentiality agreements unlawful

Cites 'overly broad' language in severance agreements

^{Matthew Sellers (HRD America)}

Whenever we talked about Meta or *Careless People*, Wynn-Williams would fall silent and assume a blank facial expression, lest she make another statement that would result in Meta seeking another $50,000 from her under the terms of her contract.

In their complaint to the EU, ICCL raises the extremely likely probability that Sweeney is bound by the same contractual terms as Wynn-Williams.

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That means Meta's top regulator in Ireland, the country Meta pretends to be based in, will be contractually prohibited from saying things that make Zuckerberg feel bad about himself.

This isn't just a matter for Ireland. Given the nature of European federalism, most of Meta's violations of European privacy laws will start with the Irish DPC - in other words, all 500,000,000 Europeans will be forced to complain to someone who is legally barred from upsetting Zuck's digestion.

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Tax havens are a global scourge. By allowing American tech companies to evade their taxes around the world, Ireland is complicit in starving countries everywhere of tax revenue they are properly owed. Perhaps even worse than this, though, is the fact that these cod-Irish American companies can always out-compete their domestic rivals all over the world, because those companies have to pay tax, while Meta does not.

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