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> But the government benefits from Facebook (and Google's) stalking ability. That doesn’t make it ok

LurkingPenguin 5y ago
Who said it did? What this does mean is that it's highly unlikely the government is going to do what the OP suggested. Facebook et. al. are the honeypots of dreams for governments.
- adventured 5y ago
  What the government wants to accomplish with the Facebook hearings, political grandstanding and blathering, is a harness, control to their political power benefit. They're playing a political game of conquest. There is no scenario where they're going to destroy it. As a rule, DC doesn't like power competition, and they absolutely do not tolerate it from the private sector. One of the dumbest things Bill Gates ever did was crack a joke that he was as powerful as the President [1]. They're fine with people being enormously rich or famous, and having some modest influence derived from that, it has to be under their feet however, it has to squarely fall beneath their political power. There's nothing the savages in DC dislike more than private power that doesn't pledge fealty. They will break Zuckerberg and force him to retire from Facebook if he doesn't capitulate. One way or another they will get what they want. Zuckerberg's only choice is whether he gives it to them willingly, or they take it from him. He is delusional if he believes his voting interest in Facebook leaves him primarily in control of Facebook's destiny at this point, such that he can stand against Congress. Zuckerberg is fighting them so adamantly, for now, because he still views Facebook as his. That's part of his latest response, in which he has clearly shifted positioning, and now proclaims FB will stop apologizing. The DC power is particularly agitated by that, they view it as a more direct challenge to their authority. And it's that point on which he is mistaken, Facebook no longer belongs to him in regards to control. What's going on now is the action required to formally begin removing his sole control over Facebook. The political power views people like Zuckerberg as being allowed to exist, allowed to operate, in a permission sense. It's important to understand how the bureaucrats in DC view the world. Gates for a long time thought he could hide up in the Pacific Northwest, stay out of DC politics, and just keep playing in his software kingdom (eventually the tech industry and Microsoft got too big for that). The Google founders, along with Schmidt, realized a lot earlier on that they had to be deep into DC lobbying to try to preempt, shape, the inevitable political harness. During the anti-trust questioning, Gates got emotional about what he perceived to be the government trying to kill Microsoft [2]; what that response really was, is Gates feeling like control over his kingdom was being taken from him; and that's exactly the spot Zuckerberg is in now. [1] "Bill said, 'Of course, I have as much power as the president has.' Melinda's eyes got wide, and she kicked him under the table, so then he tried to play it off as a joke. But it was too late." https://www.wired.com/2000/11/microsoft-7/ https://www.wired.com/2000/11/microsoft-7/ [2] "What startled [DOJ anti-trust chief] Klein was the personal terms in which Gates made these points. "It wasn't just, You're going to kill my business; it was, You're going to kill me. And clearly we, the government, were the instrument of this great personal affliction."
  - ampdepolymerase 5y ago
    Finally an honest comment about the nature of statecraft, governance and geopolitics. Bravo!
  - coliveira 5y ago
    You are completely missing the direction in which this happens! The US government itself has little power, it is a shell that represents the interests of several capitalists. The best known are: the oil industry, the financial industry, the war industry (which works together with the other two), the pharmaceutical industry, along with several rich families like the Koch family, the Walton family, etc. These powerful interests write laws and control the country's assets. They don't want to be bothered by an individual actor like Zuckerberg. That's how congress moves, to protect the interests of the majority of the capitalist oligarchy in this country.
    - NoGravitas 5y ago
      Yes; another way of looking at it is that the US government represents the "dictatorship of Capital". Its job is to represent the interests of the capitalist class as a whole. This includes managing conflicts between individuals, firms, or industries that might otherwise threaten the stability of the system, even if they have to step on particular individuals, firms, or even industries in order to do so. That's how we got the New Deal; even though many big capitalist opposed it, their representatives as a whole saw it as necessary to prevent a Communist revolution, and therefore worth the cost.
      - handrous 5y ago
        > Yes; another way of looking at it is that the US government represents the "dictatorship of Capital". When you consider that the driving question of the conflict behind the American War for Independence, and so essentially the founding idea of our state, was, "should aristocrats have most of the political power, or should rich businessmen have most of the political power?" this is what one would expect, really.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  I don't understand why you're downvoted. The government does profit a lot from social networks, especially domestic ones. Just look at the US' handling of TikTok.

Who said it did? What this does mean is that it's highly unlikely the government is going to do what the OP suggested. Facebook et. al. are the honeypots of dreams for governments.

adventured 5y ago
What the government wants to accomplish with the Facebook hearings, political grandstanding and blathering, is a harness, control to their political power benefit. They're playing a political game of conquest. There is no scenario where they're going to destroy it. As a rule, DC doesn't like power competition, and they absolutely do not tolerate it from the private sector. One of the dumbest things Bill Gates ever did was crack a joke that he was as powerful as the President [1]. They're fine with people being enormously rich or famous, and having some modest influence derived from that, it has to be under their feet however, it has to squarely fall beneath their political power. There's nothing the savages in DC dislike more than private power that doesn't pledge fealty. They will break Zuckerberg and force him to retire from Facebook if he doesn't capitulate. One way or another they will get what they want. Zuckerberg's only choice is whether he gives it to them willingly, or they take it from him. He is delusional if he believes his voting interest in Facebook leaves him primarily in control of Facebook's destiny at this point, such that he can stand against Congress. Zuckerberg is fighting them so adamantly, for now, because he still views Facebook as his. That's part of his latest response, in which he has clearly shifted positioning, and now proclaims FB will stop apologizing. The DC power is particularly agitated by that, they view it as a more direct challenge to their authority. And it's that point on which he is mistaken, Facebook no longer belongs to him in regards to control. What's going on now is the action required to formally begin removing his sole control over Facebook. The political power views people like Zuckerberg as being allowed to exist, allowed to operate, in a permission sense. It's important to understand how the bureaucrats in DC view the world. Gates for a long time thought he could hide up in the Pacific Northwest, stay out of DC politics, and just keep playing in his software kingdom (eventually the tech industry and Microsoft got too big for that). The Google founders, along with Schmidt, realized a lot earlier on that they had to be deep into DC lobbying to try to preempt, shape, the inevitable political harness. During the anti-trust questioning, Gates got emotional about what he perceived to be the government trying to kill Microsoft [2]; what that response really was, is Gates feeling like control over his kingdom was being taken from him; and that's exactly the spot Zuckerberg is in now. [1] "Bill said, 'Of course, I have as much power as the president has.' Melinda's eyes got wide, and she kicked him under the table, so then he tried to play it off as a joke. But it was too late." https://www.wired.com/2000/11/microsoft-7/ https://www.wired.com/2000/11/microsoft-7/ [2] "What startled [DOJ anti-trust chief] Klein was the personal terms in which Gates made these points. "It wasn't just, You're going to kill my business; it was, You're going to kill me. And clearly we, the government, were the instrument of this great personal affliction."
- ampdepolymerase 5y ago
  Finally an honest comment about the nature of statecraft, governance and geopolitics. Bravo!
- coliveira 5y ago
  You are completely missing the direction in which this happens! The US government itself has little power, it is a shell that represents the interests of several capitalists. The best known are: the oil industry, the financial industry, the war industry (which works together with the other two), the pharmaceutical industry, along with several rich families like the Koch family, the Walton family, etc. These powerful interests write laws and control the country's assets. They don't want to be bothered by an individual actor like Zuckerberg. That's how congress moves, to protect the interests of the majority of the capitalist oligarchy in this country.
  - NoGravitas 5y ago
    Yes; another way of looking at it is that the US government represents the "dictatorship of Capital". Its job is to represent the interests of the capitalist class as a whole. This includes managing conflicts between individuals, firms, or industries that might otherwise threaten the stability of the system, even if they have to step on particular individuals, firms, or even industries in order to do so. That's how we got the New Deal; even though many big capitalist opposed it, their representatives as a whole saw it as necessary to prevent a Communist revolution, and therefore worth the cost.
    - handrous 5y ago
      > Yes; another way of looking at it is that the US government represents the "dictatorship of Capital". When you consider that the driving question of the conflict behind the American War for Independence, and so essentially the founding idea of our state, was, "should aristocrats have most of the political power, or should rich businessmen have most of the political power?" this is what one would expect, really.
Sebb767 5y ago
I don't understand why you're downvoted. The government does profit a lot from social networks, especially domestic ones. Just look at the US' handling of TikTok.