Again and again, Washington Democrats were shocked that the company could be so blind to its own faults and so uninterested in doing penance. Weeks after the Pelosi-video debacle, Facebook representatives trekked back up Capitol Hill to explain the company’s new cryptocurrency plan, apparently unprepared, in Democrats’ eyes, for the skepticism they’d encounter.
Gabriel DebenedettiFacebook is dangerous, said Ohio senator Sherrod Brown to the Facebook official overseeing the project.Now, Facebook might not intend to be dangerous, but surely they don’t respect the power of the technologies they’re playing with. Like a toddler who has gotten his hands on a book of matches, Facebook has burned down the house over and over and called every arson a learning experience… Facebook has demonstrated through scandal after scandal that it doesn’t deserve our trust. It should be treated like the profit-seeking corporation it is, just like any other company.
Another piece from my long archive of articles I have read and never wrote about on my blog. This quote feels particularly appropriate now, as yesterday the US Federal Trade Commission, along with 40 state attorneys general, sued Facebook, alleging that the company is illegally maintaining a personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct. The prosecutors are asking, among other things, that Facebook should break off Instagram and WhatsApp, and that new restrictions should apply to the company on future acquisitions. While the case will be hard to prove, it will certainly be an interesting fight to watch – and maybe make enough of a dent in Facebook’s power for other companies to emerge and diversify on the market.
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