If Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook hadn’t done such deep damage to our political institutions, social lives, privacy, and ability to experience joy, one might almost feel sorry for the chap. Facebook is currently under investigation by 47 of the 50 US states, as well as by various EU competition and data protection authorities. Amidst this storm of legal paperwork, it has also decided to take on the world’s financial authorities – Zuck said he’ll soldier on with the Facebook Libra plan to have the company mint its own currency.
To be clear, Libra is roughly as popular with financial authorities as cockroaches are with restaurant-goers. The Libra Association, which is headed by Facebook and plans to issue libras – a currency pegged to a basket of other currencies that can be freely exchanged across borders – has a pretty glum history so far. Many of its most prominent members, like Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal, have dropped out, and regulators have displayed a lot of scepticism about its plans. The world’s leaders, it seems, are not eager to let Facebook add “minting the world’s biggest currency” to its portfolio of products – and fair enough given the company’s history of handling our cat pictures.
Nevertheless, Zuck persists. If his latest gruelling round of Congressional testimony is anything to go by, we’re nowhere near the end of this road yet.
Before I sign off, I have some exciting news: we have an innovative new mini-budget webinar coming up. The webinar, hosted by Alec Hogg, will be an interactive look at the mini-budget that breaks down what it means for you. It will be held on Wednesday, the 30 of October, at 7pm. You can sign up here.
.@AOC, the youngest and most social-savvy member of Congress, just made Mark Zuckerberg look like a deer in headlights.
Watch her full series of questions below. pic.twitter.com/6qb105vUzp
— Millennial Politics (@MillenPolitics) October 23, 2019
