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Comment by ausbah | Hacker News Reader

Facebook's market valuation, active user count, and other normal metrics of success for them don't appear to have been negatively influenced in any meaningful way despite the crap they've been subject to for the past 2+ years. Regardless of if Facebook is overall "good" thing to have around, from the perspective of Facebook's shareholders Zuckerburg has been a great leader for the company.

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The MPs obviously talk about a leader from a society point of view, not the leader of a corporation per se. Someone making a ton of money for shareholders is not necessarily someone that's viewed with respect in a society.

> Facebook's market valuation, active user count, and other normal metrics of success for them don't appear to have been negatively influenced in any meaningful way

In The Netherlands the popularity has gone down in 2018 [1]

[1] https://www.iculture.nl/nieuws/facebook-nederland-minder-pop...

Many of the worst Roman emperors were beloved by the public even as they were dismantling the Senate and packing it with their supporters.

Not a million miles away from where we are now.

The same can be said about oil companies profiting from climate change. Or any other industry practice that harms consumers/society while raking in profits.

And this is exactly why it needs regulation.

May be. However lawmakers don’t roast oil execs. It seems to me like there is a lot of kabuki theater here and if law makers want to do something to improve social media, there are better ways to get Zuckerberg to co-operate than this method

IMHO the situation where a whole country, let alone the rest of the world, even needs Mr Zuckerberg's cooperation to keep functioning in a democratic way, is in itself the problem. I want him and his company in a position where his cooperation/non-cooperation are a nuisance at most, irrelevant at best.

> there are better ways to get Zuckerberg to co-operate

I think you misspelled "compell".

Regulatory compliance is not a matter of cooperation.

I don’t think the requirement that the CEO appear in a public deposition is part regulatory compliance( usually good faith). If Facebook is not in regulatory compliance, I am sure they will be fined millions.

probably need to be fined billions to get them to take it seriously

> And this is exactly why it needs regulation.

Regulation is a farce. It requires a body from which the regulations are spawned/enforced, and no such body is incorruptible. History shows us this time and again.

Hell, look at the example that you gave. Oil monopolies were come down upon hard in the early 20th century, and to what end? It's still a firebreathing monster of a corrupt economics.

Why is this downvoted? Is this not true? Or what is the mainstream argument against this?

Because "regulation" (legislation, rather) is the only way to keep a company from gaining too much power. Without legislation we live in an anarchy with no rules or laws. We might as well go back to the time before homo sapiens got into its dominating existence.

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