The Feds Come for Facebook

David BoazFacebook is under assault again, this time for real. The Federal Trade Commission and 46 states havefiled an antitrust case to make the company divest itself of Instagram and WhatsApp and submit to restrictions on its future acquisitions and deals.How many times have I seen this story play out as West Coast tech companies find themselves suddenly facing unwanted attention from Washington? It was bad enough that congressional committees kept summoning founder Mark Zuckerberg to hearings, both in ‐​person and virtually, forcing him to trade his T‐​shirt and hoodie for a suit and tie.Zuckerberg can afford the new clothes and the flights to Washington. The company can afford the hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees it will face. The real problem is that the most important factor in America ’s economic future—in raising everyone’s standard of living—is not land, or money, or computers; it’s human talent. And some part of the human talent at America’s most dynamic companies is being sidetracked from serving consumers to protecting the company from political predation. Anothe r productive company is being sucked into Washington’s zero‐​sum parasite economy.Like so many other founders in our most dynamic industry, for years Zuckerberg was content to stay on the West Coast developing software and building a business. Then he found his company targeted by activists and politicians and had to respond. “He was completely ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs