New Orleans The reviews are in on Mark Zuckerberg’s trip to Washington to visit with Congress. Amazingly, he seems to have emerged largely unscathed from two days of hearings. All reports indicate that the political class was befuddled and confused, didn’t really understand social media or grasp the full range of the business model, and let Zuckerberg skate on question after question with responses that he would have his “team” look into it and get back to them.
Is this the way a Congressional grilling works? Is this accountability from Facebook? An apology and another, “we’ll try harder” is about all that emerges clearly here. That’s a bag of potato chips for dinner kind of response. Very unfulfilling!
Not that I’m quitting. It’s too vital for our communication. Just minutes ago, I got a message needing urgent advice on a tenant problem in Virginia. We use Facebook as an organizing tool many places. We’ve opened up whole countries for ACORN organizing based on a first reach out via a message sent over the internet transom that Facebook facilitates.
Furthermore, reading how difficult it is to quit, it is also pretty clear that they have pretty much all of my information and everyone else’s as well. I got the Facebook message that one of my almost 3000 friends had opened some random app that made me one of the 80 odd million folks that Cambridge Analytics had sucked up through their scam. The message wasn’t a remedy and didn’t offer a fix. Just a note that I’m one of the millions, so it’s too late for me.
But, why is this so hard to fix? I’ve never opened an app on Facebook and never clicked on an ad. How hard could it be to require that Facebook ask for permission to use my data? How hard could it be for Facebook and its algorithms to block random apps from getting my stuff? This isn’t complicated. Why when Facebook turns its other cheek are we getting the cold shoulder?
Not that Facebook is any better than Google or any of the others. The business model is based on ads and pimping me out along with everyone else I know to advertisers. For the life of me I can’t understand why Congress finds that confusing.
I want a team. I want our team in Congress to get back to Facebook and tell them to wipe the smirk off of their faces and toe the line for real not with more than vapid apologies.
How hard is it for Congress to pay attention, do its homework, and do right? And, if it’s too hard for them to regulate Facebook and its friends, then how hard is it for us to find some new folks to go to Washington to figure it out? The answer is simple: it’s not that hard really.