No no and no to this very bad idea. It is interesting too that Mark Zuckerberg is backing Mayor Pete....hmmmm.....another reason not to support this wannabe candidate.....note that Sen. Warren wants to break up FB as a monopoly...so this means that the very inexperienced and very ambitious Mayor Pete is a puppet of Silicone Valley big donors and is just another status quo Corporate DNC/ GOP-lite white guy....being gay is not enough to be the Democratic candidate anymore that being a woman was enough reason to vote for Sarah Palin. Mayor Pete is not Progressive or Green....and he is in bed w/ Zuckerberg.....none of this bodes well.
4
FB is a farce.
1
Facebook should be legally bound be the legal strictures of the physical world: publishing liabilities under liable and defamation laws and, if applicable, banking regulations. It should be considered a publisher of the content it allows be put out on its platform, which means it needs to grow some editorial functions just ike the NYT has. For FB to say it is holding up American values in furthering the first amendment when it publishes hate speech, propaganda and disinformation over a platform that has become the single largest communications platform in the world is irresponsible and cynical. Same thing if they want to migrate into other old school functions like banking. Going digital and remote should not mean creating a new frontier outside of the legal and regulatory landscapes that have governed the analog world.
2
Knowing what we now know, there are some things one does not do. You do not vacation in Turkey, Syria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea ... and you do not give your personal information, financial or otherwise, to Facebook. So, no to Zuckerberg's Libra. Nyet. Nada. Nevah evah.
2
Zuckerberg doing the world's poor a favor?.......
Think about that for a minute..........
6
Bank with Facebook? What!?! You think people are that stupid? Sadly, they are.
3
Wrong question to ask. The right one might be: why would anyone, Facebook especially, even want to run a bank in the first place?
Could Willie Sutton, the famous bank robber, provide the answer? “Because that’s where the money is ...”?
Robbery comes in different forms. Does Zuckerberg believe very high periods of inflation are ahead of us, hence the “Libra”?
2
The short answer is: No.
2
A fool and his money are soon parted. Become a member of a Credit Union. You get much better benefits from a CU than a bank. I trust Zuckerberg etal as far as I can throw the Empire State Building.
Billionaires always look out for my interests. Not.
2
Perhaps I am prejudiced, never having actually even looked at a Facebook page, or any other social media, but it is my firm belief that at its core, Facebook is a dumb idea. Nobody cares what most people they do not know think. I am not interested in making silly comments about other people’s pictures. They are meaningless to me. I think that secretly, Zuckerberg agrees and therefor finds his X billion members a bunch of dummies, fueling his contempt for people other than himself. Having gotten as much as he can by selling eyeballs, he now chooses a more direct method-just taking people’s money.
2
Can we trust Facebook aka Mark Zuckerberg to run Facebook?
Corrupt crony capitalist corporate plutocrat oligarchs are a pathetic combination of parasites, predators and scavengers. Financial profits is all that matters to them.
Facebook deceptively and duplicitously posed as a social media company. But Facebook's business is selling it's users personal information for profit to third parties to profit from.
Facebook needs to be busted up. Facebook needs to be regulated up. Facebook needs to investigated up. Facebook needs to prosecuted up.
4
" I wouldn’t let Facebook water my plants, let alone monitor my banking transactions."
I think that about sums it up. The notion this company should be allowed anywhere near anyone's financial information, let alone the data involved in being a big bank, boggles the mind.
If you can't trust a government agency run by honourable men that only looks for foreign governments, spies, terrorists and traitors (NSA) to stay out of hoovering up data (remember Snowden's disclosures) why should you add a profit motive and a known track record for abuse to technical opportunity.
2
Oh god, what could possibly go wrong... A currency untethered from institutional accountability, backing and protections, entwined in an unaccountable, mismanaged, opaque for-profit company run buy an all-powerful billionaire 35 year old who’s only had one job his entire life and no significant life experience in the real world. Sounds great! Those crazy preppers have been sounding less crazy lately, getting ready for the day the most valuable currencies will be clean water, canned food and ammunition...
3
If Facebook truly wants to gain trust, stop publishing political lies and smears.
2
I do not trust Facebook to do anything properly.
Least of all handle my money.
2
If we are talking about breaking up Amazon how can we even contemplate letting Facebook run a bank?
2
To make the proposal is an outrage. But here's a good one, outlaw Facebook.
1
I hardly trust them with photos of my dog. So, no.
2
Seriously? I’m going to trust this company with any financial transactions? Surely you jest.
2
We can't even trust Facebook to run Facebook? How could we ever trust Facebook to run a bank? The immature but greedy Zuckerberg does not care to be bothered with details about so many things, he has no business running anything. Someone must disabuse him of any idea of doing anything more, much less running a bank. Perhaps now is the time for him to go back to Harvard and get the education he missed out on and so sorely needs.
5
One simple question "What's in it for amoral billionaire Zuckerberg?" That should answer every other question.
2
"The 1.7 billion people across the world who lack access to a traditional bank will be welcomed into the fold of the global financial system." How can someone not have access to a bank, but have access to Facebook?
1
@Anna Just try to open a French bank account ...
Americans are going to share their confidential banking information, including SS numbers, account passwords, etc. with Facebook? What could possibly go wrong?
16
@Sean What makes you think banks protect your data now? They don't. Instead, they'll sell it to anyone and do.
1
I don’t even trust the US regulators to police Facebook as they’ve shown themselves to be completely inadequate to the task. I put my faith in the European regulators who actually care about the concept of individual privacy.
12
I trust Facebook more than the banks politicians deregulated and bailed out. The author seems to think we are accustomed to non-corrupt entities and government officials.
Didn’t congress allow themselves to conduct insider trading while locking the rest up for the same thing until a few years ago?
In my opinion, Mark Zuckerberg lacks scope and is too immature to be leading Facebook. He is unable to get ahead of his idea and have an understanding of the exponential ramifications. While dealing with authenticity and credibility in my business and life, I feel fortunate to have have deliberately avoided Facebook.
9
We should remember that the frat brothers with the idea but not the computer know-how had to sue to get the money they felt he owed them for their Facebook idea.
Then with that knowledge decide whether to park your assets in his bank.
10
Can we trust the banks to run a bank? I mean... come on... pick a major bank, open its Wikipedia page, and scroll to the "Controversies" section. It will almost certainly be the largest part of its page. It's not unlikely that it's larger than the entire rest of the article combined. They've never faced a reckoning for the 2008 recession that they caused. And that's just the malfeasance that's publicly known and documented to Wikipedia's standards.
Facebook can scarcely do worse.
Actually it can do worse. Apparent;y, you are unaware that banks are federally insured. The Bernie people like to rail against banks-but no depositors lost money-banks were wi-Ed out-but depositors we’re made whole. When Zuckerberg loses all of the money people give him in exchange for his virtual currency, they will have no recourse-it is almost inevitable, and when the poor saps that trust Facebook (and if you still trust Facebook you are a sap) do not think Mark will make good out of his own pocket.
11
No. We can not trust facebook based on past experience. What makes us think that things may change in the future.
Excellent article.
14
Facebook is an active agent in skewing product marketing and individual, retail, and political profiling. There is no inherent responsibility for anything they do, or anything they can be blamed for doing. Their desire to extend influence into the global money system is questionable, at best, considering their motivation, lack of oversight, and resistance to regulation.
19
The other day i conducted cyber safety training for elementary school students. When asked by a show of hands of how many 4th and 5th graders used facebook - i was met with empty stares. There is indeed hope that facebook has an expiration date
18
@Shake Sphere You have to be at least 13 in some states to use FB, 14 in some states, and even older in other states so the age issue is not actually regulated, these kids are actually underage though. You should have to be at least 18 in my opinion.
The one thing we can be confident of is that Facebook will attempt to make Zuckerberg richer.
13
Were Libra to become a competitive currency alternative, to be on par with a world reserve currency, it could become the preferred reserve currency - all somehow in control of 30 something's Mr. Zuckerberg and a gang that's already worthy of becoming a rogues gallery of Too Much Too Soon.
The financial system will continue to cautiously evolve, albeit in fits and starts; if it's tied into face book and that ilk we don't know how it all ends, but this doesn't feel like it would end well.
Leave our money alone. You have enough of it already.
10
"The 1.7 billion people across the world who lack access to a traditional bank will be welcomed into the fold of the global financial system." Or maybe let the Post Office do it.
AS far as trust, just no.
13
Short answer is NO.
14
No.
14
I wouldn't trust Facebook with my phone number let alone bank account number.
16
@CK
FB may already have your 'phone number and email. FB harvests contact information from users, so if you have an acquaintance who uses FB, they have your number.
1
No. Can we trust Facebook period?
14
No; PayPal withdrew from the experiment so it could obviously see what there would be a problem with this idea. PayPal was wise to get out as it has a good track record of keeping personal data safe and has build up goodwill and a great reputation over the years.
I think it was nieve of PayPal to even team up with Facebook in the first place. It is a bit like a local upmarket designer label where you clothes were made in USA deciding to get their clothes made in China. China goes upmarket and gains value whereas the designer label goes downmarket and looses value.
Similarities; China = Facebook and designer label = PayPal.
7
The only people who would use the bank would be dark web people, like money launderers and drug dealers; like all that crypto currency dark web unofficial bank was run like the Wild West and people robbed your stash because it was run like the Wild West and you had no official redress to get reimbursed for your stolen money. Tough luck folks! That's the way the world wide web operates; security is a joke and anyone who would trust a social media platform that can be hacked into, to guard your moola is nieve. Great for criminals though! Could anyone seriously see facebook re-embursing you for your financial losses if you account was hacked into and your money stolen.
11
Well I guess that it is a good thing that not a single person in the world will be forced to use Libra - which is as it should be.
The only way that it will be successful is if people vote with their wallets. If it solves no one's problems then it will cease to exist.
And - just in passing - I would be delighted if Representative Ayanna Pressley could provide a coherent and thoughtful summary of exactly what blockchain is and how FB proposes to employ it and why she is against it.
Funny thing - I have zero faith she even has an inkling of what/how/why blockchain.
2
Instead of highways and bridges, your bank interest tax goes to Facebook/(Libra) Nation infrastructure.
4
Can We Trust Facebook to Run a Bank?
No.
22
"Can We Trust Facebook to Run a Bank?"
The question should be, "can we trust facebook?". There's no reason to believe it would be any more trustworthy running a bank than running its current business.
20:30 EDT, 10/24
15
For money laundering, this is brilliant.
23
I am already peeved that FB harvested my email address, my location and my circle of friends from my contact information their computers. I have had nothing to do with them but FB has used my friends' names as an enticement to join.
Take care of my money, track my purchases and perhaps my source of income are all too much of an invasion of my private world. Hooking up with Uber, a lawless company, is certainly no attraction for any sensible person.
Should Libra ever come into existence, it should post a warning, with every transaction, that it is a financial institution with no backing of the USA.
11
Is this even a question? Facebook can’t be trusted, period..l
20
Utter nonsense, through either end of the binoculars
From one end, denying a biz the size and scale of Facebook formal approval for conducting bank-like functions is ridiculous
The float across all aspects of their business likely higher than that of all but 100 US banks
And – oh yeah – remember when Wal-Mart was the grown-too-powerful death star into which all US retail’d be sucked
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/17/business/17bank.html
“...Few efforts illustrate the breadth of Wal-Mart’s ambitions — and the fears that they...generate — as much as a nearly decade-long drive to establish its own bank...
“...Yesterday, Wal-Mart...abandoned...plans for its own bank...after a firestorm of criticism from lawmakers, banking industry officials...
To level-set, some ‘07 sales #’s:
> Amazon ~$15B
> Sears ~$50B
> Wal-Mart ~$300B
From other, whole idea of “one more” c’currency so absurd, don’t know where to begin
How about what Fed’s actually doing – vs saying – re a real-world currency/float issue:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/11/business/economy/federal-reserve-treasury-bills.html
“...Markets expected the Fed to do something to prevent...turmoil after September’s troubles. The Fed’s chair...said just this week that a plan was coming “soon...
Only rational arguments in favor are that – like the art biz – some like to dabble, some, to get rich, and some, to pretend there’s innate value to the stuff
And – vs global economy – $ involved too small to screw the rest up
1
Simple answer: NO
25
The headline asks "Can We Trust Facebook to Run a Bank?" I don't trust Facebook with any of my data, so why would I trust it with my money? Facebook has repeatedly demonstrated it acts in bad faith and is wholly untrustworthy. Perhaps cryptocurrency is the wave of the future, but if I have a choice, I will keep my hard earned cash as far away from Mr. Zuckerberg as possible.
22
The banking system is ripe for major hacking
Soon we will wake up to empty accounts
It will not be fun for anybody
But nobody is running our government or financial systems
I don’t drink, but I am stocking up
I need a fiddle too
6
@Lost In America At least our accounts are insured by FDIC. No such insurance and no regulation.
4
@javierg
if the computer works
While Zuckerberg was testifying in Congress that users could control their privacy, his lawyers were arguing in a California courtroom that simply having friends on Facebook automatically invalidated all privacy rights.
Make all the facts public and let people make an informed decision on trusting Facebook with anything - their location, health conditions, sexual preference, purchases, political beliefs, or their money.
8
Perhaps if Facebook agreed to step away and surrender all decision making power to the Libra board they could regain and build public confidence in themselves and the initiative.
1
I would not trust Facebook with my money, but I would not trust any other other cryptocurrency provider, or any member of the Squad. And the Representatives omit the facts that no one is required to use Facebook and that, if Facebook does not offer it, someone else will and they are no more likely to be trustworthy.
3
No. Just No. It would be like letting your 12-year-old son take charge of the entire family budget and income without any supervision.
19