Asked if social media platforms should be regulated more tightly, a senior Democrat staffer said, “I think Mark [Zuckerberg] said as much.”

This dynamic is under stress as the realization of the darker side of Big Tech’s power dawns on the political class. The Democrats’ Better Deal campaign platform, released in 2017 and shaped in no small part by Schumer aide and FTC nominee Becca Kelly Slaughter, includes several planks on fighting corporate monopolies. But while it names several industries, it carefully leaves out tech companies. That kind of omission probably couldn’t happen today, just a year later. Some Democratic leaders continue to struggle with where to draw the line. In an interview with Recode just two weeks ago, Schumer said that tech companies were working to police themselves, that Facebook was a “a very positive force,” and that he was “sympathetic” to the company’s situation. The Cambridge Analytica scandal dropped a week later. It was reminiscent of a 2011 Senate hearing with then-Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, where Schumer went on and on about New York’s tech sector and how Google “has been a very important part of that equation.” He added that small tech startups in New York told him that “Google is a positive force, much more positive than most of the other large companies they deal with.” The hearing concerned an investigation into Google favoring its own products over competitors in search and on its Android phones. Schumer hasn’t made a public statement on the Facebook scandal, though that hasn’t prevented other members of the Democratic caucus from speaking out. Pelosi, whose district is home to several tech firms, said at a CNN town hall in October, “We are blessed with the advances in technology” from Silicon Valley, but “it has its dangers. And we’re learning more about what they are.” A senior Democratic staffer told The Intercept that Pelosi’s office has been coordinating with ranking members to push forward on investigating Russian election meddling on a number of fronts, including by looking at Facebook’s role. The effort includes letters, press conferences, meetings with Facebook leaders including chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, bill introductions, and calling for investigations in the Energy and Commerce Committee, which Republicans have only now agreed to. The staffer made clear that the Minority Leader saw the Facebook revelations as a national security issue, as opposed to the economic security issues in the Better Deal agenda. Asked if social media platforms should be regulated more tightly, the staffer said, “I think Mark [Zuckerberg] said as much,” apparently referring to the CEO’s widely-repeated statement to CNN that “I actually am not sure we shouldn’t be regulated. … The question is more what is the right regulation.”



Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers the keynote address at Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference on April 18, 2017, in San Jose, Calif. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t the only startling behavior Facebook is being made to answer for. U.S. users of the platform who obtained the personal data Facebook collected on them were startled to find phone numbers and text messages pulled from their Android phones; a spokesperson told Ars Technica this information was used to rank contacts in Facebook Messenger. Fair housing groups have sued Facebook for continuing to allow advertisers to discriminate based on race, gender, disability and other criteria in housing ads. The company has been aware of that problem for over a year and has yet to remedy it.

Seeing the Democrats’ new guard take on Facebook reflects a new willingness to confront power in unpredictable ways.