Opinion: The Brexit fantasy comes due

And Facebook's top management comes in for withering criticism. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Friday, November 16, 2018 [NYTimes.com/Opinion »]( [David Leonhardt] David Leonhardt Op-Ed Columnist The British government has a problem. The reality of leaving the European Union — Brexit — is turning out to be more unpleasant than its advocates promised. As a result, Theresa May’s government is at risk of collapsing, and it’s still not clear what will happen with Brexit. The core problem hasn’t changed since the Brexit referendum passed in 2016. The advocates’ case revolves around unrealistic promises: that Britain could keep the benefits of European trade (easily selling products in other countries, for example) while getting rid of the downsides (like agreeing to continentwide rules). Now that Britain needs to negotiate the specific terms of its exit with Europe, the impossibility of a perfect solution is becoming clear. That’s why May’s proposed deal appears to lack the support it needs to pass and is being savaged by both anti- and pro-Brexit members of Parliament. Britain now seems to have three basic options. The first is a version of May’s muddle-through, in which Britain agrees to a deal with Europe. The second is a no-deal Brexit, in which the country simply leaves. Steve Hilton — a former top Tory adviser — has a very brief summary of that option [here]( and [Matt Ridley]( has a longer version in The Times of London. The [editors of Bloomberg Opinion]( don’t like either of those options, calling May’s approach “folly” and saying a no-deal Brexit would be a “calamity.” So they offer a third: A new referendum to give the British people the chance to undo their earlier decision to leave. But of course that has its own costs, in the form of public anger that politicians ignored the initial result. There are no good options at this point. And it’s unclear which of the bad options Britain will choose. Unfriendly. Facebook has come in for withering criticism for its attempts to cover up and minimize its role in spreading misinformation, as [reported by The Times](. Facebook suffers from “an astonishing cluelessness and moral rot in the company’s top executive leadership,” [writes Helaine Olen in The Washington Post](. “What has happened at Facebook is a failure of management, plain and simple,” [writes Shira Ovide in Bloomberg Opinion](. The company’s biggest problems are not technological but human, [argue Wired’s Nicholas Thompson and Issie Lapowsky](. “Even as Facebook has rolled out technical and staffing changes,” they write, “its ruthless efforts to protect the company’s reputation at all costs remains unchanged. That’s an issue that can’t be solved with better algorithms.” What now? Congress needs to take action, both to understand the full story of what happened at Facebook, [as Slate’s Will Oremus]( writes, and to rein in Facebook. “There are solutions; the overweening dominance of the tech platforms need not be seen as an immutable fact of nature,” my colleague [Michelle Goldberg]( writes. Also in The Times, [Kara Swisher]( lays out a five-point plan to making big tech companies in Silicon Valley more transparent, accountable, diverse and self-reflective. The full Opinion report follows. [How to Find Out What Facebook Knew]( Illustration by Mike McQuade; Photographs by Tom Brenner/The New York Times By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Only Congressional hearings can answer what the company knew about Russian meddling — and when. Op-Ed Columnist [Democrats Should Un-Friend Facebook]( By MICHELLE GOLDBERG It’s time to treat Facebook like the ruthless monopoly it is. 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