You’ve probably noticed a flood of emails spamming your junk folder of the holiday weekend from websites and companies alerting you to their updated privacy policy. No, it’s not just you, and yes, it’s a whole thing. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has finally become enforceable, meaning laws dealing with data privacy and protection for those living in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA) have been updated.
If you don’t live there, you probably got the updated privacy policy emails anyway. These companies have had over two years to alert users from the time the law changed to when it actually took effect, but procrastination is a universal vice and everybody sent theirs out at the last minute. As a result, social media meme-ified it.
This is my favorite. #GDPRday pic.twitter.com/fQrz2K6NHQ
— Whitney Merrill (@wbm312) May 25, 2018
While some used meme formats to poke fun at the inconvenience posed by the last-second barrage of update policy emails, others used the GDPR as a handy excuse to shut down uncomfortable lines of inquiry.
There’s even this bizarro fellow kids one from the Iowa State University Police:
Then of course, there were film and video game references:
That. Is. Freaking. Insane. pic.twitter.com/aAyUkWe6Wm
— Amir Rajan (@amirrajan) May 28, 2018
The jokes just went on, and on, and on…