Leaking a trove of internal documents that, among other things, revealed that Facebook would like to “leverage” your child’s playdate for more clicks, whistleblower Frances Haugen dropped the latest public relations nightmare onto Mark Zuckerberg’s lap.
But while Haugen might have diagnosed the problem, she doesn’t have the cure.
We knew that social media’s algorithms can devastate the mental health of children. Haugen’s document release reveals that Facebook knows it, too. We also know that criminal elements routinely use Facebook and its properties to traffic both drugs and children, something else the documents make clear.
At her hearing on Tuesday, Haugen used her platform not to call for breaking Facebook up, but seemingly to entrench the platform under a regime of federal oversight. At one point she suggested the need for a federal regulatory body to oversee Facebook and other platforms. This is, obviously, an overt call for government regulation of speech under the guise of “safety.”
So should Congress care? About Frances Haugen’s solutions, no. Whatever her motivations, she is a clear partisan whose solutions to the numerous problems plaguing social media solve nothing. They merely entrench the speech controls and market dominance of the existing platforms.
But the documents Haugen has produced are devastating, and show that rather than a new regulatory framework the government must enforce the existing laws.
Haugen’s release makes clear that Facebook continues to mine the intimate details of children’s lives — potentially breaches of data privacy laws of which Facebook is a repeat offender.
In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission slapped the company with a record-breaking $5 billion fine, and a promise to do better. Facebook shrugged off the action as the cost of doing business (and so did Wall Street; the company’s stock price rose in response) and went on its way. Given this information about Facebook’s internal workings, perhaps it is time for the FTC to revisit the company’s data practices around children.
Facebook also appears to be misleading investors and advertisers about their reach in the advertising space. Facebook operates one of the biggest — and most lucrative — digital advertising agencies in the world.
If they are lying to investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission must look into it.
Congressional Democrats and the corporate press are focusing on Haugen as an “American hero,” but Haugen is not the protagonist of this story. Facebook is. And Haugen told them what is already painfully clear: policy problems proliferate on these platforms.
Market power distortions, privacy violations, and a largely lawless business model premised on surveillance capitalism must be remedied.
The answer is not new controls, new agencies, or more hearings. It’s time for government enforcement agencies to act.
Rachel Bovard is the senior director of policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute and the senior tech columnist for The Federalist.