Facebook is no stranger to strict European privacy laws. The social media giant has often had to grapple with these policies in court, such as the sweeping new rule called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that would impose hefty fines on the company if it mishandles user data. However, Facebook got ahead of the law by making it easier for its 2 billion global users to manage their own privacy.  

“We’re rolling out a new privacy center globally that will put the core privacy settings for Facebook in one place and make it much easier for people to manage their data,” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said at a Facebook event in Europe this week.

Sandberg also said that the company, which is facing a wave of legislation in Europe for not doing enough to remove terrorist content and hate speech, must “do better” to stop these problems from spreading.

This is the best example yet of how legal and financial pressure can work on Facebook. Because of the dedicated efforts of European privacy agencies, all of Facebook’s users around the world get to benefit from stronger privacy controls. It is possible to make the company better protect user privacy — it just takes a lot of hard work.