Facebook is a Utility

Facebook has turned into a public utility and thus it should be subject to government regulation. As the Cambridge Analytica scandal has shown, the public is mostly not informed on how their personal data is used by Facebook and sold to third parties like Cambridge Analytica that use it for controversial purposes like microtargeted political campaigning. Today, a higher degree of transparency and accountability is needed for platforms like Facebook to operate. As the recent attempts of Facebook to reform and develop itself were rather unsuccessful and the Senate hearings of CEO Mark Zuckerberg were not conclusive, it seems as though the government is the only entity that can assure binding regulation and the respect of certain norms. Therefore, the government of the United States in which the company is registered, should produce legislation that forces social media platforms like Facebook to make their use of personal data more transparent and subject to a certain set of values. This would mean that the use for political campaigning as propagated by Cambridge Analytica would be regulated in the same way as traditional campaigning follows certain rules. Furthermore, if data processing norms are uniformized and controlled by the government, it would be easier for users to detect misuse and feel more protected on platforms like Facebook.

[P1] Government intervention is better in regulating the market than a free market.