German government pushes back on call to close Facebook page

BERLIN (AP) — The German government is pushing back against a demand by the country’s data protection commissioner to take down its Facebook page over data privacy concerns. The commissioner said last week that he had given the government’s press office four weeks to shut down the page. He argued that people who run such Facebook pages and the network’s owner, Meta, are jointly responsible for what is done with users’ personal data, and that the government was unable to prove that data protection principles were being adhered to. The government said Monday that it believes Facebook alone is responsible for protecting users’ data and said it would like to keep its page up.