Listening to Mark<\/p>\n
Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman of Facebook, testified to a committee of the US Senate yesterday.\u00a0 Everyone wanted a piece of it; it was actually a joint meeting of two Senate committees, and forty Senators were poised with questions.<\/p>\n
Zuckerberg was articulate and prepared.\u00a0 He answered the questions with practiced politeness, and only occasionally descended into Facebook \u201cgeek-speak.\u201d\u00a0 To those Senators who didn\u2019t have much of a grasp of the technology, Zuckerberg was kind, not making them look stupid.\u00a0 To those who knew a lot though, he generalized, refusing to get specific about the technical details of his product.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not a huge fan of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), but he made a significant point yesterday.\u00a0 In questioning Zuckerberg, he asked him who Facebook\u2019s biggest competitor was.\u00a0 Zuckerberg came back asking about what area of the industry Graham was talking about:\u00a0person to person, video and picture, messaging, and the like.\u00a0 Graham pursued the question:\u00a0 who is your biggest competitor:\u00a0 \u201c\u2026if someone didn\u2019t want to use Facebook, what would they use?\u201d<\/p>\n
Zuckerberg didn\u2019t answer the question, but the answer was clear.\u00a0There is no one media application that can do what Facebook does.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t want to use Facebook, you can\u2019t replace it.\u00a0 Graham\u2019s point:\u00a0 Facebook has a monopoly of two billion users with no real competition.\u00a0 In America, being pegged as a monopoly can have dangerous consequences.<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t blame Facebook, it\u2019s an American success story.\u00a0Two kids in a dorm room come up with a computer program, they grow it, expand it, find financing for it, move it from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Silicon Valley, and make billions of dollars.\u00a0There avowed goal:\u00a0 connect the people of the world.\u00a0 They are a third of the way there.<\/p>\n
But monopolies have their downside.\u00a0 Since there is no competition there is little incentive to change a \u201cbusiness model\u201d that works.\u00a0 And with the current financial capacity of Facebook, the new and innovative ideas that come up are bought up and subsumed into the Facebook system.<\/p>\n
In America we either break up monopolies, forcing them to become multiple competing companies (Old ATT became eight different corporations), or we regulate them, as we do with public utilities in Ohio.\u00a0 Breaking monopolies up creates competition, giving consumers choices and encouraging innovation and reduced costs.\u00a0 Regulation controls costs and how business is conducted, but does not necessarily encourage innovation.<\/p>\n
Mark Zuckerberg is willing to become a participant in developing regulations for Facebook (he said so to Senator Klobuchar.)\u00a0 It\u2019s a smart move: if it\u2019s regulated, it can remain a monopoly.\u00a0 Zuckerberg has made it clear that he is in favor of regulating \u201cadvertising\u201d on Facebook \u2013 what he is avoiding is touching the financial heart of the Facebook model:\u00a0user data.<\/p>\n
Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill) made a significant point in his questioning.\u00a0 His first question to Zuckerberg:\u00a0 \u201cWill you tell me which hotel you stayed in last night,\u201d followed by \u201c\u2026tell me who you messaged this week.\u201d\u00a0 Zuckerberg answered \u201cno\u201d to both questions, underlining Durbin\u2019s concern about the loss of personal information control that Facebook creates.<\/p>\n
Data is the heart of Facebook, and the ability to sell data and data use is the Facebook business model.\u00a0 Collecting user data is what they do.\u00a0 And it\u2019s the heart of the problem as well:\u00a0 how can American\u2019s protect themselves from data \u201cprofiling,\u201d and from those profiles being used to subversively influence them.<\/p>\n
As a monopoly, there is no competition forcing Facebook to change.\u00a0If users don\u2019t want to use Facebook, they certainly can choose to delete their accounts.\u00a0 But they can\u2019t find a similar service, and Facebook is THE major form of communication for millions or more.<\/p>\n
Regulation is the answer.\u00a0 And while the \u201cregulators,\u201d members of the US House and Senate, may not have the technical insights to understand how to control Facebook, they can find the folks who do.\u00a0 Maybe Mark Zuckerberg specifically, and Silicon Valley in general, will participate to lend their technical understanding.<\/p>\n
Facebook influences what we think, what we buy, and who we vote for.\u00a0 The past two years have made it clear that, knowingly or not, the leaders of Facebook haven\u2019t found a way to get control of their \u201cplatform.\u201d\u00a0 If the American \u201cfree enterprise\u201d system doesn\u2019t provide a choice, then it\u2019s up to the government to provide those controls.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"