Despite the slap down Congress gave Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other social media giants over selling users private information and spreading so-called “fake news,” industry insiders don't believe anything will change.
Adam Fisher, author of “Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley, " likens the tech giants to Detroit's Big Three of the 1950s.
“The tail fins go up and down, you get a new feature on your messenger app, but essentially it's locked down,” Fisher told Yahoo News podcast "Bots & Ballots.” They have nearly global monopolies on what they sell, really nothing is going to change, there's just too much money involved.”
Fisher says what's needed is real Congressional regulation.
“If you said 'hey, Facebook, if there's pirated content or if there's slanderous content, you're going to be liable for it,' the news there would look a lot more like the New York Times if you just made people responsible, legally,” he says.
Until then, Fisher says it's up to consumers to find more accurate news elsewhere.
“Maybe the general public will wise up, and I think they will, to the fact that the medium is the message and they're being bought and sold, and go back to buying high-quality information instead of gorging themselves on low-quality information and fake news.”