There's only one law in America: capital accumulation shall not be impeded.

This administration is more interested in using executive agencies to advance a political power consolidating agenda not protecting consumers and citizens from corporate abuse and villains of privacy. Mega corporations and government (US Executive branch) are getting in bed and partnering to exploit data to maintain and expand power and control. Where and when the US Constitution protects citizens and prevents the government from doing an action, the government will lean on mega corporations to enforce their policy in the private sector. Social credit, like communist China na, is coming to the US. While the GOP has been resurrecting McCarthyism, they have been stoking the fears to make them a reality. Projection at it's finest. The hypocrisy is mind blowing and the cognitive dissonance in those that way up the FUD extremely strong and empowering for the malicious "elites" using it.

FTC's yearly budget is under half a billion, companies can simply throw more lawyers at a problem until the next election. Rinse and repeat.

Case in point, FTC did start an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook in December 2020 and the trial finally started last month. Hence, Zuckerberg being at the inauguration, getting rid of fact-checkers etc.

Nobody wants to kill the golden goose.

EDIT: well, that's probably not true, there are probably many people working for e.g. the FTC that would love to go after big companies. This is certainly true for the CFPB. But collectively, there's very little will from either party to do so. I mean, a large portion of congress holds Meta stock; some got rich off it.

A Five Whys might be appropriate.

Why won't Meta be punished for this? Because they won't be convicted.

Why won't they be convicted? Because the court system is corrupt, trials are expensive, and Meta has more money to throw behind lawyers than anyone who cares to sue them.

Why is the court system corrupt? Because corruption is spreading through every aspect of the US government, as corruption, like black mold in a kitchen sink, tends to do when not actively fought.

Why are trials expensive? Because the law is complicated and there isn't much support for privacy, so this isn't open-and-shut like a murder case, it would be a long drag-out fight between the few people with little money who care about privacy, and a huge corporation powered by the fear and apathy and helplessness of billions of people.

Why does Meta have so much money? Because nobody stopped them when it would have been easy. Because corruption of democracy and erosion of privacy have been ongoing for decades, maybe forever.

Why isn't corruption being actively fought? The working class (Net worth under say 5 million) are on back foot against it. Nobody has time to vote, protest, organize, unionize, run for office, fix things, help the homeless, when you can't afford a damned thing, when a pregnancy is a career-ending problem, when you can't even get an abortion safely in many states, when you're one ambulance bill from a "not a debtor's prison" constructed debtor's prison.

Why isn't there much support for privacy? Same reasons, plus public education lags behind on this issue. Tech moved very fast the last few decades, and there's no public education for adults, so people don't really get sat down and told what the risk is of mass surveillance. The stories get written, sometimes, but not listened to. Nothing very serious gets done when you can always flip channels and see something funny, which is what Meta and TikTok sell to people. You can always flip channels and tune out, and it might take years to say to yourself "I think I have a crippling Internet addiction".

What's the actionable?

1. Always fight anyway. Get stuff off of Meta. Publish Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. Help friends get away. Do what you can.

2. Do things in physical reality.

3. Vote in every god-damned election you can vote in. Vote blue even if it's a shit sandwich, because most Americans are stuck under FPTP voting, and life is better under Democrats, do I need to explain the word "gradient" to a website full of startup hackers?

Prosecutorial discretion is tremendous. This won't be enforced against Meta because Meta is huge and powerful. If you become huge and powerful, many of the laws stop applying to you, because prosecutors know it's frowned upon to attack the ownership class.