Facebook Is a Hostile Foreign Power

This article asks us to think: what if all advertisers around the globe formed a united, transnational organization capable of reaching billions of people per day? In other words, the framing of Facebook as nation-state-like is useful for understanding the size and scope of both the company itself, and the harms it does.

Some other multinationals may be just as "big" in one sense or another. But few (possibly none) have the combination of a) the influence over as many people on a day to day basis, and b) the disregard for society that Facebook possesses.

What makes the article / this framing interesting is that it calls into question some basic assumptions of political theory. For example, it's been assumed that for a state-like power to have influence, there must be a corresponding geographic region. But if you reach billions of people per day, wherever they are... what was previously a black and white distinction is now a grey area.

The author uses a powerful metaphor ("hostile foreign power") and then wimps out on following through with it.

If you really believe that, then a Congressional declaration of war with Facebook is in order. That would mean, among other things, charging all executives and Board members with treason.

Since that word gets thrown around loosely these days, let's see its actual definition (Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution):

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

Sounds like a hostile foreign power to me. An open-and-shut case; after all, we're at war with them.

OK, maybe that sounds ridiculous to you (or maybe not)? If so, then magazines shouldn't use clickbait headlines like "hostile foreign power."

One has to wonder how a company like Facebook would be treated under a regime like China's.

The United States nuked Japan twice for doing less actual harm to the Republic than Facebook has done.