Time to break Facebook up

Facebook has become a problem. It makes its money – US$23.3 billion in 2017 – by running roughshod over privacy concerns and selling users’ data to advertisers. It’s a monopoly, having either bought or crushed most potential competitors. It stifles innovation; as … potential startups can’t get capital if venture capitalists think they might wind up as Facebook road kill.

And then there are the issues that have emerged since the 2016 election: how Facebook looked the other way as Russian interests spread disinformation; how it was slow to act as its platform was used to foment murder and rape in Myanmar; how it turned over user data to Cambridge Analytica, the sleazy political data firm working on Trump’s presidential campaign; and, in the most recent revelation, how it tried to discredit critics in the most odious of ways - by linking them to George Soros, the Jewish financier who has been demonised by the anti-semitic right.

As more has emerged about Facebook’s business tactics ... critics have come forth with lots of ideas about what to do. Over 30 senators have cosponsored a bill that would force Facebook to abide by the same disclosure rules for political ads as television and newspapers. Some called for congressional hearings.

But the idea that makes the most sense ... is to break Facebook up.