Oh, those brave members of Congress! Their courage and resolve to save America from Facebook was inspirational.
Mark Zuckerberg’s voluntary appearance before both houses of Congress last week was nothing more than a dog and pony farce — and the dog was being wagged.
I am apparently in the minority, believing that the Facebook part of 2016 election tinkering was relatively unimportant. The micro-targeting enabled by Cambridge Analytica’s use of data purloined from Facebook is stuff than happens every day. Facebook users can’t sneeze without having Kleenex ads pop up for weeks.
Algorithms that identified the poorly informed voters who would have their biases reinforced by a misspelled ad from a Russian bot are unlikely to have driven many from Hillary to Trump. Anyone with a rudimentary intellect and functioning moral compass already knew Trump was unfit and unqualified to serve.
That 87 million people had personal information floating through cyberspace is an issue, to be sure, but it was not Facebook’s or Zuckerberg’s intention. It was partially carelessness and partially the inevitable consequence of a platform that has grown too large too quickly.
It was mostly the chicanery of the truly evil Steve Bannon and his reprehensible sugar daddy, Robert Mercer. Facebook and Zuckerberg got scammed. Bigly.
In his testimony Zuckerberg was careful, dignified and well coached. He endured criticism for not answering questions, but they were almost entirely of the “when did you stop robbing banks?” variety. When demanded to answer “yes” or “no,” he would attempt to add some context on matters of some complexity and be abruptly, rudely interrupted as one after another politician scored points for the cameras and the home audience. Their grandstanding was accompanied by a striking lack of knowledge. It was embarrassing.
It is clear that Facebook has some catching up to do, and Zuckerberg acknowledged most of it. Opting out of sharing personal information must be easier and clearly offered. Identifying fake pages and unscrupulous ads must be done more thoroughly. Users have not been adequately aware of what information might be available to whom. That must change.
In some ways Facebook is a microcosm of our society. Zuckerberg sees it as a platform hosting the world community. He claims reluctance to impose too many restrictions on how that community operates. It is analogous to the First Amendment. Restricting expression, even in Facebook posts, is anti-democratic. Some members of Congress expressed concern that liberal viewpoints are privileged and cited the repression of Diamond and Silk as example. Diamond and Silk are two black women vloggers who support Trump and are riding the counterintuitive nature of their support to minor celebrity. But whatever intended or unintended bias exists at Facebook, it is child’s play compared, for example, to the blatant propaganda spewed 24/7 by Fox News. When will Rupert Murdoch be called before Congress?
Yes, Facebook is greedy and has monetized its platform by targeting users with ads based on their personal information. But no one has to play. Facebook should make this more transparent, but it is doing nothing illegal.
Monetizing Facebook is not nearly as dangerous as monetizing Congress. The members of Congress who puffed up with self-righteous indignation at Zuckerberg are taking donations (bribes) from corporate lobbyists. Thanks to Citizens United, which anointed personhood to corporations, shadowy money in support of conservative campaigns increased tenfold in a decade — to more than a billion dollars in the last election cycle. And the Democrats are hardly innocent.
But these hearings were mostly a wag-the-dog enterprise, creating a stir and pretending that Congress is taking things oh so seriously. Seriously?
Just look, for example, at the cowardly, treasonous behavior of the House Intelligence Committee and its chair, Devin Nunes. The Republicans on that committee “interviewed” witnesses, who may have subverted the interests of America, by asking five minutes of softball questions and thanking them for their patriotism.
Nunes himself ran to the White House to share privileged information, obliterating any boundary between the executive and legislative branches of government. The Republican committee memo blaming the Christopher Steele dossier for the warrant to wiretap Carter Page was pure propaganda.
Members of Congress are sitting on their hands as the environment is despoiled and America’s public lands are being turned over to rapacious fossil fuel extraction. Members of Congress are sitting on their hands, showing no courage to impeach or sanction a president who has almost certainly engaged in obstruction of justice and possibly colluded with a foreign adversary to win the presidency. Members of Congress have ignored the public perjury of Attorney General Jeff Sessions (and others), who lied under oath. We have rapacious pharmaceutical companies, unethical insurance scams and under-regulated investment firms. Congress holds no hearings. They deregulate more.
But, by God, they’re not going to take any guff from Facebook.
Steve Nelson lives in Boulder, Colo., and Sharon. He can be reached at stevehutnelson@ gmail.com.