… If Facebook’s leaders were willing to level with us, they would stop defending themselves by appealing to lofty values like free speech. They would focus instead on more practical realities: Facebook is incapable of vetting political ads effectively and consistently at the global scale. …
We should know better than to demand of Facebook’s leaders that they do what is not in the best interests of the company. Instead, citizens around the world should demand effective legislation that can curb Facebook’s power.
The key is to limit data collection and the use of personal data to ferry ads and other content to discrete segments of Facebook users — the very core of the Facebook business model. CONT.
Siva Vaidhyanathan (UVA), New York Times