Facebook’s indiscriminate selling of ad space to Russian meddlers and failure to prevent Cambridge Analytica from extracting its user data to influence the 2016 presidential election created an uproar from “big government” Democrats who cried foul play amid mounting calls for regulation. Meanwhile, Republicans believed admitting to Russian intervention in the election would delegitimize their victory, so they merely shrugged their shoulders and called the Democrats sore losers.
Recently, however, even the traditionally “small government” Republicans have been calling for regulation to prevent Facebook from silencing conservative viewpoints via discriminatory algorithms and account removals. Two congressional hearings, which have been laden with a palpable bipartisan ire, have taken place since April. The social media company appears to be facing down a barrel of red tape, and soon other “Big Tech” companies could be facing the same peril.
Policymakers are increasingly viewing Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook as an existential threat, but they are also proceeding with caution that is painstakingly slow. Members of Congress have had to acknowledge the fact that each of these five companies in the technology sector have been and continue to be vital components of economic growth in the U.S., and over-restrictive regulation could be severely damaging to the U.S. economy. Is Big Tech too big for government regulation?
Absolutely not, and the presumption that Big Tech’s economic output necessitates or justifies collateralizing consumers is false and abhorrent. Big Tech has taken advantage of the American people for far too long, and our government has failed to hold them accountable for exploitative practices that exceed economic benefit.
Moreover, the political points awarded at the circus show of congressional hearings are to the detriment of the American people. The real reason policymakers are slow to certainty on regulation is because of intense lobbying efforts on behalf of Big Tech companies fearing that Facebook’s treatment used as precedent.
Uninformed, vulnerable consumers should not be the means to revenue growth, and the public should not be convinced by corporate PR campaigns that Big Tech will do the right thing this time. There are too many examples to the contrary, and policymakers shouldn’t lend credence to these pathetic public relations apologies.
Decisive action is needed to protect vulnerable consumers, but regulators cower behind platitudes, such as that regulation will restrict free markets. However, Big Tech regulation is not an affront to free markets, but a protection of it. The sheer market dominance of these Big Tech companies in a supposedly competitive free market is sufficient evidence. To use the aforementioned example of Facebook, in 2018 the company controlled 79 percent of the total market share for social network ad revenue.
Facebook’s appeal to advertisers is its trove of user data that it had obtained from consumers who never consented to such an invasion of privacy except through pages of dense terms and conditions that no reasonable person could have read and understood. Facebook has told the public that it will handle the issue internally, but consumers have had enough of Big Tech impunity and regulators should take notice.
The sad reality is that much needed consumer protection isn’t coming for quite some time. During the congressional hearing of Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, one senator asked him the asinine question of how Facebook’s business model worked without consumers paying money. Zuckerberg condescendingly replied, “Senator, we sell ads.” Cue the face palm.
If that question is any indication of how little our members of Congress understand about technology, then Americans will have to hang on the corporate scaffold for at least a few more years.
Patrick Gagen is a 21-year-old mass communication and finance senior from Suwanee, Georgia.
