A Bunch of Senators Just Showed They Have No Idea How Facebook Works. They Want to Regulate It Anywa

[EasyAce]

"If Facebook and other online companies will not or cannot fix their privacy invasions, then we are going to have to. We, the Congress."
By Robby Soave
http://reason.com/blog/2018/04/10/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-senate

On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary and Commerce, Science, and Transportation committees grilled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the company's insufficient efforts to protect users' personal data.

In doing so, many of the senators betrayed a general lack of knowledge about how Facebook operates. Imagine trying to explain social media to your grandparents—this was essentially Zuckerberg's task . . .

. . . (S)enators on both sides of the political aisle were clear about their concerns—and more than willing to step in.

"If Facebook and other online companies will not or cannot fix their privacy invasions, then we are going to have to," said Sen. Bill Nelson (D–Fla.). "We, the Congress."

What Nelson and his colleagues largely failed to do was demonstrate that "we, the Congress" possess the requisite knowledge to regulate Facebook, or that those regulations would improve upon the policies Facebook would like to implement on its own . . .

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Asking Congress to fix privacy invasions is something along the line of asking Willie Sutton to fix the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.---EA.

[DB]

Why does the federal government have any authority over data "privacy" of a social media Web site?

If Facebook customers feel like their data is being violated they can sue Facebook if it is contrary to Facebook's user agreement. They can also just stop using it. How much damage can a customer claim for a free service?

[Frank Cannon]

Bleh. Fakebook pushes like hell for big govt' everyday. Let them choke on it.

[dfwgator]

A pox on all their houses.

[goatprairie]

If people don't know now that much of their personal info has been accessed by Facebook and sent on to other powers, they deserve what happens to them.
Don't like FB?  Don't get on it. My wife gets on it every day to gab with her daughters and kin.  She isn't going to stop despite the current brouhaha.
I'm technically a member, but I find it too dull.  I get  on big city websites and comment on columns and news reports to wind up liberals. That's my fun.

[EasyAce]

I never used Facebook as a personal diary the way so many people do. I use its instant messaging to stay in touch with my son
when we're not talking by telephone or visiting; I use it to keep track of local events and musicians (I have a blues band of my
own now and it's one way to get word out and even find possible gigs); I use the instant messaging to stay in touch with other
friends and relatives scattered around the country, but that's about it. I've never used it as a news source.

But I still think the government needs to keep its cotton pickin' hands the hell off. Because the one sure thing I know is that,
whatever's wrong with Facebook, the government will make it worse. And not know what it's doing while they're at it.