>If a Less than a million dollars of Facebook ads shown to a few thousand people can determine who becomes president in the US, then there is a much bigger problem.

Do we know that that’s all that happened? Or is this just the tip of the ice berg.

>Anything short of of making these tools available to everyone would position Facebook as an agent/agency of the US Government.

Facebook is an American company. So is Apple and Google. Even if they are not legally bound to serve the interests of the country, their employees are overwhelmingly American and probably patriotic and so we have to expect that when push comes to shove the interests of the US will come first.

>"Facebook is an American company. So is Apple and Google. Even if they are not legally bound to serve the interests of the country, their employees are overwhelmingly American and probably patriotic and so we have to expect that when push comes to shove the interests of the US will come first."

85% of Facebook users are outside the United States. Taking the position of "when push comes to shove, we work for the US government" is probably not the best way to be seen.

There is nothing stopping them to be equally transparent for everyone while keeping the laws of every jurisdiction in which they operate.

> we work for the US government

It isn't even "US government". It is a part of US government that is gripped by paranoia-of-the-day and wants to grab powers Constitution does not give then, because paranoia is excellent grounds for power-grabbing.

Facebook has over 2 billion users. If they want to stay relevant in the global scheme would be taking a risk by giving preferential treatment to American authorities. Especially given Germany's power in the EU and the rising European hostility towards digital platforms.

There's a lot of folks to advertise to on this side of the pond, and we're having elections to ;)

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly...

> we have to expect that

How is that a moral justification?

Even if we might expect it, it does not make the fact any better.

The confusion, backpedaling, retractions, straw grasping and general abuse of the concept of computer security is extremely troubling. This is clearly an example of such nonsense. I'm not a huge fan of FB, but can you imagine being put in this position? 'Russia hacked the election! You WILL do something about this RIGHT?' Probably a new and unique position for Zuckerberg.

> Foreign to whom?

You're sounding as if Facebook were a global site and not just American company caring only about American controversy-of-the-day...

> If a Less than a million dollars of Facebook ads shown to a few thousand people can determine who becomes president in the US, then there is a much bigger problem.

"If". It is obviously not the case, but it's much easier to scream "Russians stole our presidency" than own up to actual mistakes made. Especially if one of the mistakes would sound like "selecting me as a candidate"...