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Sixty different politicians had five minutes each to grill Zuckerberg about whatever they wanted, and they jumped at the opportunity to try and test him. Congress came across as prepared, serious, and thoughtful. While the hearing was supposed to be about Facebook’s push to create a new digital currency called Libra, about half of the back and forth centered on other topics, from its controversial political ads policy to Facebook’s record on diversity to particular congresspeople’s pet

Forty-six attorneys general have joined a New York-led antitrust investigation into Facebook, raising the stakes in a sweeping bipartisan probe of the tech giant that could result in massive changes to its business practices.

Targeted online ads and data harvesting are incredibly lucrative for the platforms but harmful for local newsrooms and the communities they’re supposed to serve. The shift in eyeballs and ad dollars to the platforms has hastened the collapse of the traditional advertising marketplace that once helped sustain quality local journalism. This collapse has led to widespread layoffs, which has meant less of the content that readers are willing to pay for, which has resulted in more cutbacks and the continuation of a vicious cycle.

A days-long feud between Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Facebook intensified over the weekend as she openly accused the company of "taking money to promote lies." Facebook fired back via another social media platform, Twitter, where the company compared itself to broadcast television stations that ran a Trump ad and are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. The "FCC doesn't want broadcast companies censoring candidates' speech," Facebook said.

Facebook could pay $40 million to settle a lawsuit from advertisers over miscalculated video metrics. The legal battle began in 2016 after Facebook disclosed it had incorrectly calculated the average viewing time for video ads on its platform. For two years, the tech giant had only counted video views that lasted at least three seconds, ignoring those of shorter durations and artificially pushing the average length of a view higher.

Congressional antitrust investigators are scrutinizing plans by Google to use a new internet protocol because of concerns that it could give the company a competitive advantage by making it harder for others to access consumer data. Investigators for the House Judiciary Committee asked Google for information about its “decision regarding whether to adopt or promote the adoption” of the protocol, which the company said is aimed at improving internet security.

What sort of a tax on Silicon Valley (and others) might make sense from a social policy perspective? What about a tax on the sale of personal information, including the use of personal information for ad placement? To be clear, I’m not talking about a tax on collecting information or on using the information collected. I’m talking a tax on two-types of commercial transactions; selling information about individuals to third parties, or indirectly selling information to third parties via targeted advertising. It would be sort of a carbon tax for privacy pollution.

Attorneys general for 50 US states and territories officially announced an antitrust investigation of Google (CA and AL are the only states that have not signed onto the probe), embarking on a wide-ranging review of a tech giant that the officials said may threaten competition, consumers and the continued growth of the web.

State attorneys general are formally launching separate antitrust probes into Facebook and Alphabet’s Google unit starting the week of Sept 9, putting added pressure on tech giants already under federal scrutiny. New York Attorney General Letitia James said that her office was organizing a bipartisan, multi-state probe into social media company Facebook. “We will use every investigative tool at our disposal to determine whether Facebook’s actions may have endangered consumer data, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices, or increased the price of advertising,” she said.

What passes for innovation by Big Tech today isn’t fundamentally new products or new services, but ever more sophisticated exploitation of people. It’s time we demanded more of Big Tech than it demands of us. That's why I’ve proposed banning the “dark patterns” that feed tech addiction. I’ve introduced legislation to provide consumers a legally enforceable right to browse the internet privately, without data tracking. I’ve advocated stepping up privacy safeguards for children and requiring tech companies to moderate content without political bias as a condition of civil immunity.