After the 60 Minutes interview and Congressional testimony this week, it is clear that Frances Haugen, a.k.a. The Facebook whistleblower, is a Democrat. This is altogether unsurprising, as Big Tech is filled to the brim with liberals and leftists, with nary a conservative to be found. The way she is using the political system to mutate Facebook into an arm for her political priorities, however, exposes the fundamental difference between Left vs. Right thinking.
Taking policy out of the equation, the difference between people who lean left or right is broken down by institutional thinking or individual thinking. Leftists think institutionally. If they are part of an institution, be it a corporation, school, media outlet, government agency or anything else, that institution should mirror their own priorities. Conservatives think individually. Their politics are personal and unrelated to the institution that they are a part of.
This is how the Left have taken over nearly every institution for the past 70 years. It’s not a massive global conspiracy directing agents into schools, businesses and federal agencies. It’s a mindset that exists amongst Leftists, who don’t respect individualism, that their institution must have the same priorities that they do. That, combined with the cowardice of those in charge, have gotten us to the place in America where we are now.
Facebook is the latest to succumb to this. For a while, Zuckerberg was standing in the breach, trying to protect freedoms of speech and expression, But even the world’s second richest man didn’t have the courage to stand up for his convictions, and will allow the institutionalist thinkers to reshape the company he built.
Enter Haugen, an institutionalist if there ever was one. Haugen’s testimony on Capitol Hill is the epitome of this thinking. And if you think in this manner, you don’t have to be planted by Leftists. You are already a double agent in your own company, a Manchurian candidate waiting for the opportunity to strike. The opening sentences of Haugen’s statement proves this. “I joined Facebook because I think Facebook has the potential to bring out the best in us,” she started. “…The company’s leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people. Congressional action is needed. They won’t solve this crisis without your help.”
Facebook has no responsibility to “the people”. Their responsibility is to their shareholders to create a company that earns the “astronomical profits” that Haugen derides. Realistically, in order to earn those profits, they need to take certain factors into account. Like many capitalistic interactions, there’s a certain amount of forced altruism that Facebook must have to be profitable. That’s not what Haugen wants, though. She wants Facebook to become a state-run organization that pushes her politics.
There are a lot of options the government has to regulate the “problems” within Facebook. They could repeal or restructure section 230, which provides certain protections to websites. They could start to treat Facebook like a publisher instead of a platform. They could even break up Facebook like a monopoly.
Haugen rejects these. “The severity of this crisis demands that we break out of our previous regulatory frames,” she said. “Facebook wants to trick you into thinking that privacy protections or changes to Section 230 will be sufficient.” When asked about breaking Facebook up, she rejected that in favor of overwhelming government regulation. “I also believe there needs to be a dedicated oversight body…there needs to be a regulatory home, where someone like me can do a tour of duty after working at a place like this and have a place to work on things like regulation to bring that information out to the oversight boards that have a right to do oversight.”
This is the embodiment of institutionalist thinking. This company isn’t doing what I want them to do, so I will cudgel them into doing so by asking the only organization in the country more powerful than them, the Federal government, to create an oversight board with me in charge.
The Right, for better or worse, simply does not think this way. Maybe we have to in order to win in the future. Or maybe we need to create new methods to fight back against this. One thing is for sure, more oversight on Facebook is not the answer. That will only accomplish one thing, it will centralize the dissemination of information so Democrats can continue to remain in power. That cannot be allowed to happen.
Moshe Hill is a political columnist and Senior Fellow at Amariah, an America First Zionist organization. Moshe has a weekly column in the Queens Jewish LInk, and has been published in Daily Wire, CNS News and other outlets. You can follow Moshe on his blog www.aHillwithaView.com, facebook.com/aHillwithaView, and twitter.com/HillWithView
