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Afternoon Links: Our Forthcoming Redesign, Regulating Facebook, and Photo Editor Fails

By Jim Swift

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Don’t regulate Facebook. I hold a slightly different view than some of my colleagues regarding Facebook and regulation. However, Mark Hemingway has a must-read up on the site. Here’s a taste:

Because there is peril in Zuckerberg’s and Silicon Valley’s cluelessness about the possibility that Congress could rein them in with new regulations. That is that Congress cannot be counted on on to act sensibly to protect our privacy and cybersecurity. In fact, there are few problems Congress can’t be counted on to make worse. If our tech overlords don’t want to keep being called before Congress, their last best hope is to start acting more responsibly on their own.

Preach, Mark! Frederic Filloux at the Monday Note has an item that I am in much agreement with as well:

This “protection by regulation” is an inspirational blueprint for Facebook. The global social network might experience a slight pain of having regulators curb the most abusive part of its business, but in the end the benefits will largely outweigh the hurdles. In a few years, the most likely scenario is that Facebook will have barely altered its phenomenal growth, while negotiating the best deal possible with American and EU regulators: one that won’t impair its staggering financial performance, while discouraging anyone else willing to challenge its walled garden — especially with the vast product lineup it will have deployed by then. Facebook has very little to fear from regulators, whether in the United States or in Europe. (In countries like Southeast Asia, and soon in Sub Saharan Africa, where Facebook aims to embody the internet, it doesn’t have to worry at all about oversight. It can still enjoy the position of a Big Tobacco, willing to create new pools of addicts.) In Washington, Facebook is now a strong player, on par with its two giant pals, Amazon and Google. Together, they spend nearly as much on influence lawmakers as Boeing, the primary US defense contractor.

If you think Facebook’s practices deserve scrutiny, then hearings are a great avenue. But Facebook doesn’t deserve protection, and that’s what regulation would bring. Especially from this dysfunctional Congress.

I thought Sonny Bunch was always right™? Former TWSer, current Free Beacon-ite, and Weekly Substandard co-host Sonny Bunch is, according to the show’s fans, never wrong. But in the wake of Kevin Williamson’s firing, Bunch has gone out of his way to compile a list of his unpopular opinions. If The Atlantic really wants to replace Williamson with a pro-life firebrand, they of course should hire F. Bill McMorris.

Speaking of Kevin Williamson, he has a new post over at Commentary about the reboot of Roseanne.

Photo editor fails. It seems someone at the Denver Post is not a fan of baseball. A front page photo meant to be of Coors Field is actually that of Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Here is an excerpt of a must-watch interview with VICE.



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