>The Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which data from 87 million people’s Facebook profiles were harvested and used to micro-target and manipulate people for political campaigning purposes, opened the world’s eyes to the capabilities such platforms possess to influence people at scale – and the risk that they could be abused by other actors.

>Ultimately, it is now evident that the era of self-regulation in the tech sector is coming to an end: further state-based regulation will be necessary, but it is vital that whatever form future regulation of the technology sector takes, governments follow a human rights-based approach. In the short-term, there is an immediate need for stronger enforcement of existing regulation. Governments must take positive steps to reduce the harms of the surveillance-based business model—to adopt digital public policies that have the objective of universal access and enjoyment of human rights at their core, to reduce or eliminate pervasive private surveillance, and to enact reforms, including structural ones, sufficient to restore confidence and trust in the internet.

Note: I only read the executive summary, emphasis above is my own.

We've had the Snowden leaks, Cambridge Analytica, and others in the last decade which have brought the power, abuses and potential for abuses of Google, Facebook et al. into the mainstream conversation on a number of occasions. Brows furred, briefly, but ultimately society decided that it ultimately didn't care.

Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Google (all products), Android, Oculus, Nest, etc. etc. are all still soaring on success after success, despite mainstream society having had their darker sides widely revealed to them.

The facts were laid out, even Colbert broke it down to a level of "<Facebook/Google> can see your dick pics", society evaluated the situation and ultimately decided it preferred "free" services, media, content, algorithm-driven filter bubbles and more above all else.

These services are empowered by consumer choices (primarily one of convenience above all else, there's no shortage of alternatives to these services) and hence will only change due to changes in consumer choices.

Tech moves too quickly for meaningful regulation, tech companies are powerful enough to lobby to gut most proposals and they are rich enough to have the very best of legal counsel to actively utilize loopholes, and defend their behaviour if/when someone does pull them up on it. The potential upsides for regulation are minimal, at best. The potential downsides are absolutely enormous and could readily result in human rights abuses that far exceed data-driven ad targeting.

One example of the such potential regulations is the current talk about weakening encryption to "protect the children".

Handing the regulation and well-being of the internet to government's that change entirely every 4-8 years, and whose priorities change on smaller timelines, who've been shown to use that internet to commit absolute acts of abuse as is (Five Eyes et al.) will only end badly. As we've seen with China, handing it to life-long dictatorships only ends badly also.

If people care, they'll stop using these services and products. Those that don't accept the consequences they've acknowledged and signed up for. Based on the outcome, that which is known as the internet will iterate and evolve to meet whatever the new needs of the consumer are. Let's keep the government out of it.