Sheryl Sandberg Misled Congress About Facebook’s Conscience
This is good article about a complex topic.  The question is something like &quot;How can a multinational company purport to uphold a universal set of values in a world that has incompatible values?&quot;  The obvious answer is that it can&#x27;t do so everywhere, unless those values are reduced to a trivial null-set like &quot;make more money&quot;.<p><i>Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., questioned Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about the fact that they are both ostensibly American companies, but also firms with users around the world — including in countries with legal systems and values that differ drastically from the United States. Rubio cited various governments that crack down on, say, pro-democracy activism and that criminalize such speech. How can a company like Facebook claim that it’s committed to free expression as a global value while maintaining its adherence to rule of law on a local level? When it comes to democratic values, Rubio asked, “Do you support them only in the United States or are these principles that you feel obligated to support around the world?”</i><p>Cheryl Sandberg answers for Facebook by saying that there is not really a conflict, and that &quot;Facebook simply would not do business in a country where these values couldn’t be maintained.&quot;  As the article points out, given that Facebook does business in a number of countries with very anti-democratic rules, these must not be very expansive values.<p>Jack Dorsey gives a more nuanced version for Twitter: &quot;We would like to fight for every single person being able to speak freely and see everything, but we have to realize that it’s going to take some bridges to get there.&quot;  Perhaps disappointing, but at least a more realistic answer.<p>A bigger question, not brought up in the article, might be &quot;Do we think that official statements to the US Congress actually provide useful information about corporate values?&quot;  While it might be legalistically interesting to point out the contradictions between individual executives&#x27; prepared statements and actual corporate behavior, it&#x27;s hard to see what actual insights can be gained from differences in PR strategy, unless we presume that the corporations&#x27; choice of PR is indicative of the real underlying values.