“Facebook has too much power over America’s communications infrastructure. And Facebook’s failure to manage that power responsibly ... is a direct threat to American democracy, and the government must act now..."
Even before the most recent scandal, many people had started questioning whether the world’s largest social network might have gotten out of control...
"What’s genius when it helps Obama, is suddenly a threat to Democracy when Trump wins. The truth is, it was dangerous and unethical before and it’s dangerous and unethical now..."
"We’ve been there before, in the crash of the dot-com bubble of 2000, when we believed that downloading pop music and porn would drive the economy of the future. We’ve done it again... Internet community and Artificial Intelligence were the two blasts of hot air that inflated the bubble."
Let's imagine a model in which the marketers of data distribute some of their immense profits to the users who created and thus "own" the data being sold for a premium.
"Mozilla is pressing pause on our Facebook advertising. When Facebook takes stronger action in how it shares customer data, specifically strengthening its default privacy settings for third party apps, we’ll consider returning."
"There was nothing that could be said to appease the most vocal critics, mainstream backlash will persist as Cambridge Analytica remains in the headlines, and we would expect some impact to near-term platform usage" - BofA
"Facebook has asked us to share our data, to share our lives on its platform... They’re wondering what’s happening to their data. Can they trust Facebook?”
It's "now time to hear from a senior Facebook executive with the sufficient authority to give an accurate account of this catastrophic failure of process."
"We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you. We made mistakes, there's more to do, and we need to step up and do it."
"...that’s how Trump won. It wasn’t the Russians, it was our own social media companies... It’s both horrifying, and cleverly brilliant at the same time... The funny thing is, Obama did something similar in 2012 and liberals celebrated."
