So what did Sheryl Sandberg say in the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings? How about Twitter's (TWTR) Jack Dorsey? Did Jack deliver? Did the Google (GOOGL) "snub" cut numbers?
There's the rub, isn't it? A day after they really cratered tech because of the Workday (WDAY) selloff and the congressional hearings, we are stuck with the problem that all congressional ambushes leave investors: What's the next day story?
Now, we know the mainstream media -- flabbergasted by the total disintermediation of their jobs by the web and recognizing the web providers aren't doing much at all versus them to police things -- aren't going to let this go.
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But the haters have to face facts. Did anyone hear about the need for a social media czar? Did anyone propose legislation or even the threat of legislation? Or how about a federal magistrate on the board of one of these companies? Outside investigators with a Stanford Comp Sci degree who work at the FBI?
I mean, come on.
The issue here is one of ignorance, ignorance on the part of the government about how to police these companies -- right down to the idea of their politically biased algorithms designed to flag and promote controversy, perhaps to create more viewership -- and ignorance on the part of the tech executives to be at all sensitive to the notion of a free and fair press.
What would have happened? What would I have done?
If congress wanted to play hardball, they could demand that Facebook (FB) and Twitter put up boilerplate cancer symbols, basically a skull and bones next to what could be lies, and you figure it out yourself.
And that's the real rub. Who is congress to decide what we read. Who is Facebook to decide? It's not clear. Washington wants them to decide.
But I think the genie is out of the bottle. Neither knows what to do. It's just that Facebook and Twitter didn't seem to care.
Now they do.
That may be all that happens.
