I cheered until I read the comments and learned they backed down. Facebook (and others, but this thread is about FB) is in need of serious government intervent

I cheered until I read the comments and learned they backed down. Facebook (and others, but this thread is about FB) is in need of serious government intervention. I say this as a firm believer in small government, which, of course, does not mean no government, just the absolute minimum necessary government and, yes, regulation where necessary. FB's refusal to recognize the damage their algorithms are causing the entire world borders on the criminal at this point. It's horrible stuff. I've written about this on HN a few times. It's one thing to be driven deep into a deep mono-thematic cave if you are looking for bathroom tiles or laptops, it's quite another when the subject matter is in the realm of politics and hatred. Over the last several years I have watched two of our family members self radicalize on FB on opposite ends of the US political spectrum. One hates Trump with a passion and the other democrats. In all cases that is all they talk about, and with a level of hatred that is impossible to imagine. They also ceased to have a relationship in real life. These two were as close as could be, father and son. It's truly sad. FB destroyed a family. Sure, they had their ideological bias prior to being grabbed by the FB algorithm, but they could talk about it at the dinner table and laugh. FB used that against them and took them to the absolute limit, a limit they do not seem able to escape. The extended family tried to help them. It's like drug addicts or alcoholics. We would have to sequester them to an island without access to the internet for a month or more in order to reset their brains and bring them back. In other words, its impossible. For all their AI prowess it is amazing to see just how bad platforms like FB and Google are with regards to not taking people on these self-radicalizations tours of the internet. And, of course, politicians are so clueless about technology that they can't even begin to ask the right questions during congressional hearings, much less understand what they have to fix. So, yeah, it would be great to see at least one place on earth take a strong stance on FB to at least force the conversation and start fixing the problems. Life would not stop in Europe if FB evaporated from the continent.