While the harsh criticisms from the Vice President of the United States, JD Vance, and the State Department of that country against the United Kingdom regarding the actions of the British police in the murder of Henry Nowak are still echoing, a new crisis has erupted between the two countries. This time it is not about values or immigration policies, but about something more basic: money. Specifically, Silicon Valley's money.
The reason for the confrontation lies in the plans of the Government of British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, to limit minors' access to social media before the end of the year. The Trump administration flatly rejects this decision for the simple reason that all major social media platforms operating in Europe are American, with the exception of the Chinese TikTok. Washington has made its position very clear by posting a statement on its embassy's website in London declaring that "we are concerned about regulations that impose a disproportionate compliance burden on U.S. companies or that could be applied to some platforms but not to similar services."
Washington's arguments are the usual ones from the Trump administration: social media is an instrument of freedom of expression (as evidenced by accounts like 'Catturd' or 'Cagadadegato', followed by the president himself) and, moreover, bans are ineffective (as demonstrated by the U.S. government's action to force the Chinese TikTok out of the country). Finally, the embassy's website strongly defends the role of families in controlling social media, something undoubtedly crucial in the U.S., where 40% of children are born to single mothers.
This is where the pressure from the U.S. stems from. However, Starmer does not seem willing to back down, partly because he is in such a politically weak position that he needs to appease an electorate that does not have much sympathy for tech giants. Government spokespeople stated yesterday that London "is focused on doing what is right for families here, now, and in the future."
The Prime Minister is planning to expand his offensive by giving Apple (makers of the iOS mobile operating system) and Alphabet (owner of Google and Android) a three-month period to develop systems that prevent minors from creating, receiving, and sending nude images. This measure would mainly affect platforms like Snapchat. However, its enforcement is challenging in cases of platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Signal, and the Russian-Emirati Telegram, due to the architecture they use.
The British government's measures are not draconian. They include limiting a series of practices for minors using social media. These include 'infinite scroll', which allows 'posts' to be viewed endlessly, and 'autoplay', where one video ends and another begins. Additionally, the use of hyper-personalized feeds will be prohibited, and minors under 16 will not be able to view accounts of users who have not accepted them as friends. Another significant measure is disconnecting from social media at certain hours of the night, something that wouldn't hurt for adults either.
Silicon Valley - and through their political campaign contributions, Washington - are not so concerned about the introduction of these measures in the UK, but about the possibility that they may set a precedent for the European Union. There are no figures on the revenue generated by major U.S. social media platforms in Europe (including both the EU and non-EU countries on the continent). But a reasonable estimate could be around 52,000 million euros (60,000 million dollars). This amount is derived from the data presented by Meta, by far the largest social media company in the world (owner of Facebook and Instagram), which is the only one providing disaggregated data for Europe in the documentation submitted to the U.S. stock market regulator, the SEC.
In 2025, Meta generated 46.6 billion dollars (40.4 billion euros) in the Old Continent, although for Mark Zuckerberg's company, this concept includes Turkey and Russia, from where it was expelled in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine. This means that Europe contributes around 23% of the company's revenue. Similar levels are estimated for YouTube, owned by Alphabet (Google), and LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft, although they do not break down their results.
In smaller networks, the proportion decreases slightly. Pinterest and Snapchat, which have a predominantly young and teenage audience, reported in the first quarter of the year respectively 18.4% and 19.1% of their revenue originating from Europe.
These figures are due to European users being very attractive to advertisers due to their high income levels. At a time when companies like Meta and Alphabet are literally breaking historical investment records to enter the Artificial Intelligence (AI) market, maintaining stable income sources that are also growing rapidly - Pinterest's revenue in Europe is growing at 27% annually - is key to maintaining the companies' balance stability.
In any case, the next battle will be Starmer's decision to "make it impossible for a minor to take, view, or send a nude image." This measure particularly threatens Snapchat, whose content, unless the user decides otherwise, disappears after being viewed, making it more conducive to such activities.