Should Facebook really be responsible for [policing the misuse of user data](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/03/forensic-audits-cambridge-analytica/) by companies that acquire it through legitimate means [then subsequently resell it to other entities](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-trump-campaign.html), for whatever purpose?

Facebook is a broker that can directly control only how users and companies exchange data using its tools. Expecting the company to know – or even try to know – and respond to what happens to that data once data has been exchanged with its tools and taken off-platform is an impossible expectation for it to fulfill. We’re setting ourselves up as a society for continual disappointment and disillusionment having expected too much from a single organization.

Wouldn’t it be better to educate the general public about the risk of data reuse and resale should they opt to hand it over to whatever game or app developer through Facebook? Individuals could then decide if they want to assume that risk.

Facebook already gives individuals clear and granular controls on what to share. And journalism is currently raising awareness of what could possibly go wrong should people give away their data thoughtlessly. The mature response to these learnings isn’t to blame Facebook and delete your account; it’s to realize that Facebook has given you great power over your personal data and while many may have shared it unwisely, that doesn’t mean you have to as well.

Facebook and other monolithic networks aren’t social problems because they can’t control what goes on in or around them but rather because we expect and demand that they do.

We risk characterizing them as omnipotent parental figures that we should benevolently guide the multiplicity and complexity of our interactions while somehow resolving disputes with a fair hand.

But these aren’t governmental bodies and we’d be unwise to push them into that role by demanding they police data and behavior on their own or as agents of actual governments. They are international, capital-seeking enterprises, not representative bodies established, managed and adapted by referenda and all the protections of republican democracy. It’s hard enough to run a government responsive to the social needs of a specific population in an ever-globalized world. It’s madness to expect a company with nine board members and a user base of billions that spans the entire Earth to draw lines of social acceptability and benevolence let alone try to enforce them.

If we want paternalistically to prevent companies from exchanging personal data by applying categorical regulation, we already have real governments, locally, nationally and internationally available to do that. They can pass laws and enforce them, no matter how Facebook decides to expand or restrict its APIs and no matter how informed or ignorant its users are.

Want to prevent companies from reselling data without originator consent? Make it punishingly expensive to do so by weiding courts and class action lawsuits while taking care not to circumscribe the very concept of consent by infantilizing individuals and therefore assume consent itself is not pragmatically possible.

Did a company resell your data after promising it wouldn’t? Sue them. Did they never make that promise? Sorry, you’re out of luck. Just as you wouldn’t tell a secret to someone you don’t trust, you shouldn’t give any app access to your sensitive data if you don’t get legally enforceable guarantees to privacy.

The biggest shame that could come from our crisis of faith in Facebook and other platform providers would be to pressure the company into a defensive posture about the free flow of data and communication in general, effectively becoming totalitarian about its policies for fear of market and government retribution that stems from our impatient imposition of moral and legal responsibility.

用户将遭受越来越不信任的待遇，无法自由地以任何形式共享数据，无论是人口统计信息、照片、状态更新还是病史。平台将限制平台内和平台外数据的生成和交换功能，并且其软件的效用将会下降，正如我们期望它随着我们对技术步伐的膨胀感而上升一样。

这将导致对公司的暴政和无能的双管齐下、扭曲的反抗，最终导致大规模移民，尽管存在网络锁定效应。如果这导致去中心化平台的使用，人们将别无选择，只能向实际政府寻求社会补救——这将是破坏产生创造的最佳情况。

如果迁移导致随后采用其他中心化平台，我们就有可能进入一个循环，即以社会安全的名义并由于对上级当局缺乏信任而逐渐失去对数字生活的更多自由。那些具有如此独特的地位、为我们提供积极自由的平台将不切实际地承担起限制积极自由的任务，而信仰只会进一步退化。