FaceBook- The big, bad bully

The questions that have been brought to the table in the last few weeks about FaceBook are incredibly challenging. On the one hand, Facebook feels that it needs to provide as high a return as possible to its shareholders and make the most money. On the other hand, by making more money, Facebook puts many lives at risk.

I am confident that this is not the first time a question like this has arisen. There are countless companies that have had a product that has the potential to put life at risk and also the responsibility to make money and provide a return to investors. However, the largest difference is, that most of these companies have some form of regulation. Whether it’s firearm companies, tobacco companies, or even pharmaceuticals on the market- all of these products are in one way or another regulated so that unnecessary harm is not caused to innocent individuals! The tech market is so new and so unknown that these forms of regulations have not yet been put in place to keep companies such as Facebook in check from harming people. While I am all for companies having as much autonomy as possible over their products and services, when it comes to questions of life and death, we must institute regulations to keep the people safe.

My assumption is that with everything going on, regulations WILL ultimately be put in place and that three years down the road it will be so normal for tech companies to have a branch working on these issues and no one will fight it as much. My greatest fear though is that it will be so hard to enforce regulations on companies as large as FaceBook to the point that these companies will continue to get away with so much because they cannot be controlled.

I am curious to learn more about how other industries have been regulated in the past and what can be done to ensure efficacy and actual results.