I'm not sure we should be taking the whistle-blower's policy recommendations too literally, since her recommendations about what to do are going to directly influence whether people think she's a credible witness. It's much easier to say "Oh I think we should just do better" whilst also saying "And here's how facebook murders babies" rather than "We should shut down facebook". Because if you say "We should shut down facebook" when you present evidence that facebook murders babies, people will just say "Oh well you would say that, you just want to shut down facebook".

I think this article misses the main way we got here today. The reason we are here today is because Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram are 1 company. This should never have happened. It was totally anti-competitive. Social media will innevitably have network effects, so it kind of makes sense that you'll end up with giants. What doesn't make sense is that you then allow that giant to go around stamping on all its competitors. What is the best competition for Instagram today? Tiktok. Why is Tiktok the best competition? Because it's the one company facebook can't buy. Facebook has extended its life by acquiring any competitive threats or copying those that it couldn't. Simple traditional governance around mergers could have avoiding this situation. Social media companies will grow big through network effects, but until recently, they didn't stay big - because the natural ebb and flow of users meant interests change and different demographics want to differentiate themselves.

You wouldn't need to regulate facebook if it had real competition, because its influence would be smaller and it would face real competitive pressure to improve its platform.