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Comment by bicubic | Hacker News Reader

He has a tool to gauge and manipulate public perception, like the current generation of political elite can only dream of.

He can push any agenda he wants and have it delivered in just the right way to get the public to agree. You want a dude with that power to also be given executive control of the country?

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It's unlikely that he'll be able to have political control and still retain control of FB. Possible, of course, but given the current administration's deliberate attempts to wreck ethical norms I suspect that over the next decade we'll either see a transition to a different form of governance or a much firmer and stricter codification of the distinction between public and private life.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-house-attempts-to-block-of...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/10/eric-trump-nepoti...

this is a legitimate threat and its one of my biggest misgivings with him. and i dont think its realistic to think that any kind of blind trust / divestment / change in ownership would sufficiently address it. its actually almost disqualifying to me. he doesn't strike me as someone who would use it nefariously, but its stupid not to protect against that.

No, but banning him isn't the correct answer, either.

what is the correct answer? I think it's self-evident that Facebook has become a kind of mass propaganda tool the likes of which the world has never seen before. Do you think a constitutional republic can survive as a republic if we allow the owners of a media platform that powerful to enter politics?

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