A New York Times discussion, including Cato’s outstanding scholar Jim Harper: “Should Government Take On Facebook?”
I am reminded of the posters I saw in Beijing last year (just up for a short time before they would swiftly be taken down by police): “I want my Facebook!” The state should keep its damn hands off.
In an increasingly integrated global culture and economy, the tribalistic instinct to establish one’s business in the same jurisdiction where one sleeps is anachronistic to the point of stupid.
If Mark Zuckerberg had incorporated Facebook offshore and hosted it in a third country, what any particular government’s agents wants would be moot.
Granted, I would be annoyed at his fraudulently reneging on his privacy policy, but he would be immune, and the fight would be between him and his customers as it should be.
My friend, Frederick Turner, was just in China leacturing on Shakespeare, and he discovered he had no access to Facebook, either, while he was there. Goes to show that social connections are the enemy of tyranny.