We were chowing down on fresh cookies at Rectrix Aviation yesterday and Sheryl Sandberg appeared on the TV. Mercifully the volume was down at zero, but a text summary underneath read “Sandberg: We welcome regulation.”
An 8-year-old asked “What does that mean?”
My answer: “It means that Facebook is a monopoly and they want the government to help them exclude competition.”
Related:
- Lean In (book review)
- Facebook uses a Malibu-flying engineering manager to promote careers in engineering (my favorite Facebook-related item)
- Facebook is bad for us (psychologists have proven it!)
The official term is Regulatory Capture.
It’s hilarious that they seem to want the government to write their terms of service and punish them when they violate it. I didn’t realize that corporations could be masochist. Also: if they are regulated as a common carrier, does that mean they could be forced to put the gun groups back up?
There are probably some, and Zuck may be one of them, who would like having the government set the rules for what is and is not allowed on their platform. The current environment is kind of lose-lose as whatever side they take half their audience will hate them for it. If the government required them to follow 4chan style free speech it would get them out of the politics business. They could have chosen that path for themselves but their workforce probably made that impossible
“Facebook is a monopoly.” Yes, Mark Zuckerberg is the sole supplier of social media– the new Standard Oil.
Some early teaching of economic illiteracy!
Well Facebook earns monopoly profits so there is a strong argument that consumers don’t see his “competitors” as close substitutes.