This article asks us to think: what if all advertisers around the globe formed a united, transnational organization capable of reaching billions of people per day? In other words, the framing of Facebook as nation-state-like is useful for understanding the size and scope of both the company itself, and the harms it does.

Some other multinationals may be just as "big" in one sense or another. But few (possibly none) have the combination of a) the influence over as many people on a day to day basis, and b) the disregard for society that Facebook possesses.

What makes the article / this framing interesting is that it calls into question some basic assumptions of political theory. For example, it's been assumed that for a state-like power to have influence, there must be a corresponding geographic region. But if you reach billions of people per day, wherever they are... what was previously a black and white distinction is now a grey area.

The Catholic Church?

Hmm, back in its day the Catholic Church certainly acted as a state and had vast powers during the medieval period. That lasted more or less until the Reformation and ended in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, although the church technically had a military until about 1870.

Libertarians: Governments should be as small as possible and not have any way to exercise coercive power on citizens.

Mega-multinational corporations: exist

Libertarians: No, not like that!

The author uses a powerful metaphor ("hostile foreign power") and then wimps out on following through with it.

If you really believe that, then a Congressional declaration of war with Facebook is in order. That would mean, among other things, charging all executives and Board members with treason.

Since that word gets thrown around loosely these days, let's see its actual definition (Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution):

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

Sounds like a hostile foreign power to me. An open-and-shut case; after all, we're at war with them.

OK, maybe that sounds ridiculous to you (or maybe not)? If so, then magazines shouldn't use clickbait headlines like "hostile foreign power."

Why would you conflate hostile foreign power and being at war? There is a difference here between necessary and sufficient conditions. The presence of hostile foreign powers with whom we are not at war is evidence enough.

The board of Facebook consists of Americans. They are helping a hostile foreign power ( Facebook).

Help me out. How does that imply war?

Getting back to your original posting:

First of all, my whole posting was tongue-in-cheek, which everyone else seems to have gotten.

Anyhow, does it makes sense that "A formal declaration of war" has somewhat more legal force than "An Atlantic headline writer declaring them a hostile foreign power" ?

Thanks for explaining. Today was my day to not get a joke on the internet :)

One has to wonder how a company like Facebook would be treated under a regime like China's.

It would be nationalized after Zuckerberg was disappeared.

Weibo

renren.com

The United States nuked Japan twice for doing less actual harm to the Republic than Facebook has done.

Over? Was it over when Facebook bombed Pearl Harbor?

Wait, just hold on a sec! I'm close enough to Menlo Park that the wind would blow some fallout over on me, too.

(on the plus side, it would hit Apple and Google, too.)

We could try out "rods from God" instead, but I was thinking more along the lines of dissolving the corporation, letting the FBI trash their data centers, and treating Mark Zuckerberg and his cronies to taxpayer-funded rebar suppositories. :)

I was ready to say that there is such a thing as the corporate death penalty. But a professor [1] argues that it's a myth. Oh well.

[1] https://fcpaprofessor.com/arthur-anderson-and-the-myth-of-th...

I think FCPA Prof is arguing that the threat of Federal prosecution alone isn't enough to destroy a corporation. However, the Attorney General of Delaware has the authority to sue in the state's Chancery Court to have a Delaware corp dissolved.

https://news.delaware.gov/2019/09/19/attorney-general-seeks-...

Better save them for whenever a sudden volcanic event is required.