If there is one thing upon which the Left and the Right can both agree, it is that Facebook should be broken up:
In a letter published when his company went public in 2012, Mark Zuckerberg championed Facebook’s mission of making the world “more open and connected.” Businesses would become more authentic, human relationships stronger, and government more accountable. “A more open world is a better world,” he wrote.
Facebook’s CEO now claims to have had a major change of heart.
In “A Privacy-Focused Vision for Social Networking,” a 3,200-word essay that Zuckerberg posted to Facebook on March 6, he says he wants to “build a simpler platform that’s focused on privacy first.” In apparent surprise, he writes: “People increasingly also want to connect privately in the digital equivalent of the living room.”
Zuckerberg’s essay is a power grab disguised as an act of contrition. Read it carefully, and it’s impossible to escape the conclusion that if privacy is to be protected in any meaningful way, Facebook must be broken up.
The reason both Left and Right can agree on this is because there are multiple reasons that Facebook should not be permitted to continue operating. It is a criminal enterprise. It is a monopoly. It is treasonous, and it is an ongoing attack on several unalienable American rights protected by the U.S. Constitution.
I find it more than a little bizarre that Republicans have not seized upon the breakup of Facebook and other social media giants as a signature policy in their 2020 campaign platform, because it is not merely a popular position, it is not only the right thing to do, but it is manifestly in their best interest.