If Facebook was merely a large company that people depended on to communicate that would have been bad enough. But it is a large company that people depend on to communicate that also collects, monetises and transforms the personal data that people provide to it for this communication, and then holds it in opaque systems that are always two steps behind critical political developments. This perhaps explains the simple question that Congress asked Haugen: Is it time to break up Facebook?
The pure economic argument is that as long as the company is growing, it should be allowed to keep growing; after all, it is creating jobs and growing economies. But jobs and economies do not exist outside social and political contexts and will mean nothing if societies collapse. The justification for allowing indefinite growth is feeble, particularly when the evidence that Haugen provided suggests that the company is not willing to change course on proof that it harms societies.
The company’s policies on dealing with the sociology and moral economy created by the unprecedented concentration of data in its hands are wanting. It is seemingly unable or unwilling to understand that making communication easier means that people of bad intent will also find it easier to communicate.
There are fundamental questions of society that strike at the heart of Facebook’s business model that need more rigorous analysis than a couple of one-off company statements. Should a company be able to monetise information that people provide for free in order to maintain their social networks? Should political information be treated differently than commercial information and how? Is advertising the only model for funding social networks? What obligations do these companies have to societies or markets where they are not registered and yet still want to profit from? These are philosophical questions about the nature of society after the digital era that cannot be papered over by empty rhetoric about economic growth.
