Facebook Hires Former FCC Chairman Martin for Access Policy
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook has spent 2015 pulling Washington talent in-house: months after an engineering director decamped to the White House, it now reverses the pipeline by hiring Kevin Martin, who ran the very agency that governs the connectivity Facebook depends on. Access policy sits at the intersection of the FCC's authority over broadband and Facebook's distribution reach, so the hire puts a former top regulator directly on payroll.
The move fits a broader pattern the coverage traces over years — from Campbell Brown leading News Partnerships to Joel Kaplan later hunting for an external US policy chief — of Facebook staffing policy functions with people who have sat on the other side of the table.
First-order effects
- Facebook gains an in-house voice who knows the FCC's decision-making from the chairman's seat, sharpening its position in whatever access and broadband fights reach the agency.
- Martin moves from regulating the communications sector to lobbying within it, immediately shifting the informational balance between Facebook and its former oversight body.
Second-order effects
- Rival platforms face pressure to match the hire with their own ex-regulator recruits rather than rely on outside trade groups and contract lobbyists.
- The FCC's own response to this talent competition cuts both ways — its later hiring of privacy specialist Jonathan Mayer for provider probes shows the agency also recruiting technical-policy firepower to keep pace with the industry.
Third-order effects
- If the revolving door keeps spinning, platform-versus-regulator disputes get settled increasingly by personnel overlap — former officials embedded at companies they once oversaw, and agencies hiring industry-grade experts — raising familiar questions about capture and independence in tech regulation.
The trend: Major internet platforms are building permanent in-house policy operations staffed by former regulators and government officials, turning Washington expertise into a competitive function rather than an outsourced one.