The Man Who Would Be King will be testifying before Congress
this week. Mark Zuckerberg’s digital
empire seems to have scraped an iceberg and is taking on water. The Cambridge Analytica fiasco has ripped
open a wide gash in Facebook’s business model and exposed fundamental flaws inherent
in it.
Thus far, the Facebook team looks quite amateurish in its
response. Zuckerberg sent
representatives to Europe to meet with European regulators instead of traveling
in person. His prepared comments
yesterday were platitudinous and were capped off with his outlandish claim that
“advertisers and developers will never take priority as long as I’m running Facebook,”
which prompted knee slapping comments all around social media yesterday. Likewise, Sheryl Sandberg’s apology tour has
been full of platitudes, claims of making innocent adolescent mistakes, and attempts
to elevate Facebook above it the fray. “We
were way too idealistic,” Sandberg spouted, as if Facebook’s aspirations to
achieve a higher purpose was sufficient to wash away their sins. She further asserted that the company was in
compliance with all FTC regulations, which may not be true—Facebook may face FTC
fines in the billions. Zuckerberg, in
concert with Sandberg keeps repeating lofty, grandiose statements of purpose
for his company that are sounding flatter every day. In fact, they are beginning to echo of fraudster
Elizabeth Holmes’s claims of, “We’re here to change the world.” As if that were enough to insulate Zuckerberg
and Facebook.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Zuckerberg will
not be Chairman of Facebook by this time next year and that Facebook, while it
will still exist, will be a great deal less relevant than it is today. Facebook faces multiple material issues that
go to the heart of its existence.
- · Facebook’s business model is broken. I have to admit that I was wrong about Facebook in my blog post a couple of years ago. I wrote that Facebook met an inherent human need—to connect with people, and that is was essentially free. While it does permit us to easily connect with friends and family, the price may turn out to be unacceptably high for many people—a total forfeiture of your privacy. For us Android users, the cost to privacy was very high indeed. Facebook apparently has scraped text messages and call data from phones.
- · Facebook’s failure to curtail fake news has implications for our democracy. While the integrity of all of media has broken down into hyperpartisan advocates, rather than news reporting, Facebook’s platform has been most egregious. And one of the biggest problems is that Facebook itself has allowed itself to become hyperpartisan. It allowed Russian agents to propagate disinformation. But it also likely permitted the Clinton campaign to harvest data from millions.
- · Facebook’s political bias is now beyond the pale. There have been suspicions that Facebook suppresses conservative viewpoints but now it is out in the open. Just a few days before Zuckerberg’s testimony, Facebook banished Diamond and Silk, two conservative pro-Trump black women as being “dangerous to the community.” Diamond and Silk are no more dangerous to the community than Jimmy Kimmel. And at the same time, Facebook permits Antifa and its members to post. Facebook’s bias is at the front end of this battle as Twitter has also shadowbanned people and otherwise banned or suppressed politically conservative commentators.
Zuckerberg said that his company is more
like a government than a company. The
problem for Zuckerberg is that nobody elected him and this country has a long
history of pushing back on the power and reach of government. But I
have to hand it to Zuckerberg, the young, brash lad got me to rethink my position
on an issue. As a small government
advocate, my default position is to let markets alone to sort out
behavior. I have reacted negatively to
every push by the government to regulate the internet.
The behavior of Facebook and the rest of
Big Tech has caused me to reconsider.
Perhaps we do need a Digital Protection Agency. We have had an Environmental Protection Agency
to make sure corporate America acts responsibly when it comes to the environment. The CFPB issues thousands of pages of
regulations on terms and conditions of mortgages and other consumer
lending. But social media trading on our
personal data has almost no rules. I need
to think through some of the contours of regulation, especially since it would
come so close to touching freedom of speech issues, but I at least am now
willing to consider some level of regulatory scheme.
I have written this all before hearing
Zuckerberg’s testimony but I do not suspect his testimony to change my views
much.
One thing I know for sure. Alexa will not be taking up residence in my
home anytime soon.
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