There’s so much theater in the frequent congressional interrogation of tech executives nowadays that you could almost stage these hearings on Broadway. It certainly would be a long-running show, though one that plays to mostly empty seats given how boringly repetitive these hearings have become. That was demonstrated with today’s installment, as Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal led the attacks on Facebook’s credibility.
It’s not as though the politicians are wrong. Blackburn’s statement in her opening remarks, directed at the absent Instagram chief Adam Mosseri, was inarguable. “You lost the trust and we do not trust you with influencing our children,” Blackburn said. But stating the obvious for public consumption doesn’t achieve anything. Facebook management seems likely to stonewall, waiting for the crisis to blow over, without actually changing how it operates.
