What we mean when we’re mad at Facebook

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us //link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/18356116.73655/aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS90ZWNobm9sb2d5/582c8673566a94262a8b49bdB4c12f5bc [Get the newsletter]( Hi, everyone. It's [Shira](mailto:sovide@bloomberg.net). We know that fury is the prevailing feeling of 2019. People are mad much of the time about so many things. Sometimes, though, I wonder if anger is misdirected. Often, the targets are companies. There's [pressure]( on retailers like Walmart Inc. to restrict gun sales. There's anger at Facebook Inc. for [running]( a misleading political ad from Donald Trump's campaign. Some people are [furious at oil companies]( for not doing more to slow climate change, and at Uber Technologies for [taking advantage of drivers]( or worsening traffic-clogged cities. I get it. Actions of powerful companies or their failures to act can have a profound impact. They are legitimate targets for popular pressure, and companies can't simply sell potentially harmful products or run their businesses in destructive ways and throw up their hands at the consequences. But this rage is not only about those individual companies. It's also redirected fury about inaction by policy makers. People are mad about government inaction on gun violence, but policy makers are paralyzed and anger gets channeled at Walmart. People are mad about nonsensical political speech rules, failures to make laws on personal data privacy or corporate tax avoidance, but few Americans believe Congress or regulators will do anything. Instead, people are left to vent at companies. Have we gotten to the point where U.S. elected officials are so impotent that the only recourse is to hope profit-minded companies do the right thing – and then get angry when we believe they don't? There are policies that companies can improve on their own, including employee pay and sexual harassment prevention. There is also a need for clarity from elected officials -- either on their own, or in concert with big companies.  Rules about political ads are one such place. I don't want politicians to be able to mislead voters on Facebook, but the company is not solely responsible for the half-truth political attack ads that run on its services. Laws and tough regulation are a better approach than always relying on the wisdom of individual internet companies or television networks to make the tough calls. Gun policy, corporate tax avoidance, labor laws and protecting elections from cyber attacks are also matters policy makers are best placed to tackle. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Matt Levine [wrote]( about the oddity of members of Congress being angry at failures by the Federal Trade Commission to restrict Facebook's data collection practices, when those restrictions could be imposed by Congress passing a law. I don't want policy inaction or paralysis to absolve companies of responsibility for doing bad things or preventing harm. And companies are not innocent here, either. They fight against laws and regulation, which effectively gives themselves more responsibility – and they sometimes use government paralysis to justify their own inaction. Facebook for years [fought to exclude itself]( from rules that mandate disclosures of who is behind political ads on other media such as broadcast television. And Amazon.com Inc.'s history includes [advocating]( for a national sales tax law – which it knew was unlikely to happen – while it employed [aggressive tactics]( to avoid charging sales tax in many U.S. states. (Amazon gave up fighting state sales taxes about seven years ago.) [Facebook](, Google and [Amazon]( are now advocating for federal laws that sometimes feel like self-serving attempts to muzzle state or local rules [they don't like](, or to pass the buck on controversial company policies. When California recently passed a law that could force Uber and other companies to [treat contract workers as employees](, Uber [vowed to fight it](, and made a technical legal argument that a law tailor-made for Uber doesn't apply to the company. Those tactics aside, it is hard to thread the needle between saying companies like Facebook and Amazon are way too powerful, and also relying solely on them to always make hard policy decisions. That's why we have elections and a government.  –[Shira Ovide]( Sponsored Content by Baker Hughes [Baker Hughes.]( An energy technology company.  And here’s what you need to know in global technology news: Netflix Inc. acknowledged it will add fewer paying customers this year than it did in 2018. Its battered stock rallied because Netflix gave investors [just enough reason for optimism](. Huawei Technologies Co.'s [latest selective financial disclosures]( show the company hasn't been seriously hurt – at least not yet  – by U.S. government [warnings]( about the security of its telecom equipment and restrictions that [prevent]( its new smartphones from including Google apps. The European Union antitrust authority took the [unusual step]( of ordering chipmaker Broadcom Inc. to drop customer contract provisions while the regulator investigates possible anti-competitive tactics. How much Mark Zuckerberg [speech-making]( can you stand? Find out on Thursday when he gives a [talk at Georgetown University]( about free expression.  Like Bloomberg's Fully Charged? [Subscribe for unlimited access]( to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can't find anywhere else. [Learn more](.  You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Fully Charged newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022