As expected, Mark Zuckerberg told Congress that he understands that it may be
necessary to impose regulations on Internet Edge providers like Facebook.
One can imagine the “millionaire” industrialists of the last century sitting in
front of Congressional Committees around 1900, acting much the same - in
essence, please regulate us, as long as you grant us “natural monopolies” to
regulate.
Zuckerberg did not have much to say about Net Neutrality during his testimony.
In the one direct question/response I heard he called the ISP’s “the pipes,”
and warned that they might try to make him pay to allow their customers access
to Facebook.
What crap!
What was suggested, by one of his underlings, is that we might need to pay
Facebook to protect our data...
The following NR analysis nails it. Zuckerberg went to Washington to ask
Congress to protect his monopoly...
Regards
Craig
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/04/facebook-more-regulation-would-increase-profits/
Tighter Regulation Would Probably Increase Facebook’s Profits
Jonah GoldbergApril 13, 2018 6:30 AM
Here’s a bet: Congress will end up “cracking down” on Facebook with “tough”
regulations that Facebook will probably protest quite vigorously.
And then Facebook profits will go up.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, withstood two days of
questioning in Congress this week. You could tell Zuckerberg took it very
seriously, not least because he shed his traditional T-shirt and hoodie in
favor of a grown-up suit.
Again and again, he was asked whether he was opposed to regulation.
“You embrace regulation?” asked Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.).
“I think the real question, as the Internet becomes more important in people’s
lives, is what is the right regulation, not whether there should be or not,”
Zuckerberg responded.
Many are focusing (understandably) on Zuckerberg’s stance on the countless and
complex free-speech issues raised by Facebook’s dominance and reach. Zuckerberg
kept suggesting that artificial intelligence could soon solve most of these
problems by policing “hate speech” and perhaps “fake news” faster than human
monitors ever could.
Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) had a brilliant line of questioning that exposed
at least some of the problems with handing over these responsibilities to the
real-world equivalent of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey or Skynet from the
Terminator movies.
“Can you define hate speech?” Sasse asked.
Zuckerberg admitted that beyond calls for violence, he couldn’t come up with a
definition of the sort of speech that should be banned by an algorithm.
Added Zuckerberg:
I do generally agree with the point that . . . as we’re able to technologically
shift toward especially having AI proactively look at content, I think that
that’s going to create massive questions for society about what kinds of
obligations we want to require companies to fulfill.
That is both an impressive understatement and a topic we’ll all be returning to
often in the years to come.
But let’s assume Zuckerberg is correct. In the future, much of our speech will
be policed by our robot overlords.
As Zuckerberg hinted more than a few times, political leaders will need to get
involved in the regulation and administration of how these AI systems will
work. We’ll probably set up some new agency or a new division of the FCC to
provide oversight.
And which company will have the loudest voice in the drafting of these new
rules? If history is any guide, the obvious answer is . . . Facebook.
The standard story of the Progressive era, taught to high-school kids and
college students alike, is that the government has come to the rescue time and
again to curtail the excesses of irresponsible, selfish, or otherwise dastardly
big businesses. Upton Sinclair, in his book The Jungle, famously exposed the
abuses of the meat-packing industry, prompting the government to impose new
regulations on it.
Left out of this tale of enlightened regulation is that the meat-packing
industry wanted to be regulated — something even Sinclair admitted.
“The Federal inspection of meat was, historically, established at the packers’
request,” Sinclair wrote in 1906. “It is maintained and paid for by the people
of the United States for the benefit of the packers.”
The famous trusts were no different. In 1909, Andrew Carnegie wrote a letter to
the New York Times suggesting “government control” of the steel industry. The
chairman of U.S. Steel, Judge Elbert Gary, lobbied for the same thing.
The story repeated itself during the New Deal. The “malefactors of great
wealth” that FDR demonized welcomed government regulation. Famed lawyer
Clarence Darrow issued a report on the New Deal’s industrial “codes.” In
“virtually all the codes we have examined, one condition has been persistent,
“Darrow found. “In Industry after Industry, the larger units . . . have for
their own advantage written the codes, and then, in effect and for their own
advantage, assumed the administration of the code they have framed.”
Why would the titans of capitalism welcome regulation? Because regulation is
the best protection against competition. It stabilizes prices, eliminates
uncertainty, and writes profits into law — which is why AT&T convinced Congress
at the beginning of the 20th century to give it a monopoly over phone services.
I don’t know what the regulation of Facebook will look like. But I suspect one
reason Zuckerberg wants AI to be essential is that Facebook can afford to make
AI essential while potential competitors can’t.
Regardless, I have confidence that when all is said and done, Facebook will
look more like the 21st-century AT&T of social media.
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