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Comment by Manuel_D | Hacker News Reader

You realize that lobbying is working within the framework of an electoral democracy? When environmentalists lobby for more stringent emissions rules, they're not overthrowing democracy they're participating in it.

So the answer your question: Meta spends millions on lobbying to influence elected officials, because it knows has to work within the democratic system.

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I was specifically responding to this claim:

> Google and Facebook absolutely changed the world, not through politics, but by creating technology.

But it sounds like we're on the same page that they did change the world in part through politics?

I'd say they changed the world first and foremost through technology. Their lobbying effort is mostly focused on keeping the government from interfering with their technology efforts.

But back to the main point, quoting someone saying you can change the world though technology instead of democracy and trying to use such a statement as evidence that they want to abolish democracy is nonsense.

Au contraire, their lobbying efforts are focused on creating regulatory moats around their businesses: https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/17/regulate-facebook/

Facebook was created more than a decade earlier than your link. Of course if the government starts to threaten to regulate social media, Meta will want to influence the decision to benefit them. But Facebook changed the world well before the regulation push, and I'm pretty certain Facebook would have preferred that the government continued to remain uninvolved.

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