Representative after representative took to the mic to chastise Zuckerberg about their own particular bugabooselection interference, data privacy, political ads, censorshipoften with little regard to the topic at hand.
If you were hoping to learn more about how Facebook intends to structure the Libra network at the House Financial Services Committee hearing, you came to the wrong place. This summer's testimony with the decidedly less-soundbite-worthy Calibra head David Marcus yielded much more relevant and interesting questions, although there was a good amount of random Facebook-bashing there, too.
This is not a snark about Mark the person: I'm talking specifically about the way he chose to structure his still-unborn payment network.
He can't be wheeled out to face any catty congresscritters' absurd demands, nor can he be pressured to change the network in a more government-kosher direction.
Nor could Congress have any hope of subpoenaing each Bitcoin node operator: there are simply too many of them, and anyone can connect or disconnect from the network at any time.
This is very different from Libra, which not only has a small list of very public potential operators, its public face is one of American's most infamous men.
Most of the legacy financial institutions that lent credibility to the venturelike Visa, Mastercard, and Marcus's former colleagues at PayPaldropped out of the project after receiving threatening letters from politicians or bad press.
A New York Times poll of six swing states shows the progressive candidates faring worse against President Trump than comparatively moderate Joe Biden.
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