47 states file suits to breakup Facebook

[TSwizzle]

The Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of 47 states attorneys general today filed a pair of long-awaited antitrust suits against Facebook, alleging that the company abused its power in the marketplace to neutralize competitors through acquisitions and prevent anyone else from presenting a more privacy-friendly alternative to consumers. "By using its vast troves of data and money, Facebook has quashed or hindered what the company perceived as potential threats," New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the states' effort, said. "In an effort to maintain its market dominance, Facebook has employed a strategy to impede competing services."

News

This will be interesting. I'm not sure what to think about this yet.

 

[gmbteach]

The Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of 47 states attorneys general today filed a pair of long-awaited antitrust suits against Facebook, alleging that the company abused its power in the marketplace to neutralize competitors through acquisitions and prevent anyone else from presenting a more privacy-friendly alternative to consumers. "By using its vast troves of data and money, Facebook has quashed or hindered what the company perceived as potential threats," New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the states' effort, said. "In an effort to maintain its market dominance, Facebook has employed a strategy to impede competing services."

News

This will be interesting. I'm not sure what to think about this yet.

Hmmmm.

 

[Trausti]

The Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of 47 states attorneys general today filed a pair of long-awaited antitrust suits against Facebook, alleging that the company abused its power in the marketplace to neutralize competitors through acquisitions and prevent anyone else from presenting a more privacy-friendly alternative to consumers. "By using its vast troves of data and money, Facebook has quashed or hindered what the company perceived as potential threats," New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the states' effort, said. "In an effort to maintain its market dominance, Facebook has employed a strategy to impede competing services."

News

This will be interesting. I'm not sure what to think about this yet.

Hmmmm.

Indeed.

 

[Artemus]

They should start a competitor called MySpace.

 

[ZiprHead]

Not familiar with the history of facebook. What competitors have they acquired?

 

[barbos]

Not familiar with the history of facebook. What competitors have they acquired?

Instagram, Whatsapp.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Isn't this SOCIALISM which will lead to ANOTHER HOLOCAUST?????

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The States just catching onto this?

Well, back to Friendster? Or maybe an AOL chatroom. Usenet anyone?

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

The States just catching onto this?

Well, back to Friendster? Or maybe an AOL chatroom. Usenet anyone?

I use misanthropy. It's a standalone app. And by app I mean a notebook I use to write angsty poems about how no one understands me and I'm better off by myself and so what if my mom rejected my friend request.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

Not familiar with the history of facebook. What competitors have they acquired?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Facebook

Not all of those would be relevant to the antitrust suits, of course, but some of these acquisitions seem to be for similar products to facebooks namesake offerings.

 

[Jayjay]

I look forward to the day when we have a distributed, open source and ad free social media.

 

[bigfield]

How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism, by Cory Doctorow
https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

The surveillance capitalism hypothesis — that Big Tech’s products really work as well as they say they do and that’s why everything is so screwed up — is way too easy on surveillance and even easier on capitalism. Companies spy because they believe their own BS, and companies spy because governments let them, and companies spy because any advantage from spying is so short-lived and minor that they have to do more and more of it just to stay in place.

As to why things are so screwed up? Capitalism. Specifically, the monopolism that creates inequality and the inequality that creates monopolism. It’s a form of capitalism that rewards sociopaths who destroy the real economy to inflate the bottom line, and they get away with it for the same reason companies get away with spying: because our governments are in thrall to both the ideology that says monopolies are actually just fine and in thrall to the ideology that says that in a monopolistic world, you’d better not piss off the monopolists.

 

[lpetrich]

Facebook’s dominance has hurt innovation, antitrust regulators say - The Washington Post - "Facebook did not keep its promises of independence to WhatsApp and Instagram, and used years of anti-competitive conduct to neutralize rivals, according to legal filings"

Facebook executives approached Ali Partovi, the creator of a popular app that used Facebook’s data, a decade ago with a threatening ultimatum. Sell your company to us or we will shut you down, according to legal filings. Partovi’s app, iLike, had built a predecessor to the “like” button.

Partovi refused the offer. Shortly after, Facebook discontinued features that iLike relied upon, pushing Partovi to sell his start-up to Myspace for a fraction of its previous value. Facebook then built its own “like” button, modeled after iLike.

The negotiations — when Facebook was a much smaller player — are early evidence of the hardball tactics to neutralize competition that got the social network to where it is today: a platform that counts more than a third of the world’s population as monthly users of its family of apps, which include WhatsApp messaging and the photo-sharing service Instagram.

What we saw in the late 19th cy. with the railroads we are seeing today with companies like Facebook and Amazon. Yet another Gilded Age flashback, and yet more reason to call this era Gilded Age II.

The social network has made a habit of buying up, threatening, spying on and outright copying rivals, a strategy so successful that some investors have said in recent years that there was no point in even funding or building social apps anymore.

Facebook was “pouncing” on competitive threats in the same way Microsoft did when it got into trouble with regulators, said Scott Sandell, managing partner of the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates, who was product manager for Microsoft’s Windows 95 until 1995.

Facebook accused of antitrust violations - The Washington Post

"Antitrust" is a term that dates back to around 1900, and it refers to "trusts", as monopolies and cartels were often called back then.

 

[lpetrich]

Facebook accused of antitrust violations - The Washington Post
The article's title in the page: "U.S., states sue Facebook as an illegal monopoly, setting stage for potential breakup"

The U.S. government and 48 attorneys general filed landmark antitrust lawsuits against Facebook on Wednesday, seeking to break up the social networking giant over charges it engaged in illegal, anti-competitive tactics to buy, bully and kill its rivals.

The twin lawsuits filed in federal district court allege that Facebook under its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, behaved for years as an unlawful monopoly — one that had repeatedly weaponized its vast stores of data, seemingly limitless wealth and savvy corporate muscle to fend off threats and maintain its stature as one of the most widely used social networking services in the world.

U.S. government and 48 state attorneys general files lawsuit against Facebook - The Washington Post

Has a copy of the legal brief that those officials filed.

All these 48 jurisdictions filed suit:
AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GU, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY

These are 46 states and territories DC, GU = Guam

Those that did not sue are
AL, AS, GA, MP, PR, SC, SD, VI

Four states (AL, GA, SC, SD) and territories AS = American Samoa, MP = Northern Marianas, PR = Puerto Rico, and VI = US Virgin Islands

 

[lpetrich]

Why Antitrust Suits Against Facebook Face Hurdles - The New York Times - "The U.S. and states cases against the social network are far from a slam dunk because the standards of proof are formidable."

Opinion | Facebook’s Microsoft Moment Is Here - The New York Times - "It’s not too late for the government to take back power from Big Tech."

Facebook faces U.S. lawsuits that could force sale of Instagram, WhatsApp | Reuters

Facebook Inc could be forced to sell its prized assets WhatsApp and Instagram after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and nearly every U.S. state filed lawsuits against the social media company, saying it used a “buy or bury” strategy to snap up rivals and keep smaller competitors at bay.

...
“For nearly a decade, Facebook has used its dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals, snuff out competition, all at the expense of everyday users,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James on behalf of the coalition of 46 states, Washington, D.C. and Guam. Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and South Dakota did not participate in the lawsuit.

...
Facebook’s general counsel Jennifer Newstead called the lawsuits “revisionist history” and said antitrust laws do not exist to punish “successful companies.” She said WhatsApp and Instagram have succeeded after Facebook invested billions of dollars in growing the apps.

“The government now wants a do-over, sending a chilling warning to American business that no sale is ever final,” Newstead said.

 

[Elixir]

They should start a competitor called MySpace.

Spacebook?
My Face?

 

[lpetrich]

It will be interesting to see how the various factions of US politics divide up.

I suspect that the Left will be united against Facebook, while centrists will wring their hands and the Right will be divided between supporters of FB because anything goes in capitalism and opponents of FB because FB is part of some terrible conspiracy.

Right-wingers often find it hard to be against capitalist misbehavior. It sometimes seems that they cannot get themselves to criticize capitalist misdeeds unless they can attribute it to some malignant conspiracy, like of the Jews or the Communists or the Deep State or whatever. Yes, a big part of alleged Jewish villainy is being ruthless or crooked capitalists. Like demanding repayment of a loan no matter what (Shylock wanting his "pound of flesh" in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice"). Sometimes they go obtuse about the capitalist nature of what they criticize, like with the "liberal media". CNN, the Cable News Network, is a Capitalist News Network, for instance.

Alex Salvi on Twitter: "BREAKING: The FTC and 48 states seek to break up Facebook as they accuse the tech giant of becoming a social media monopoly by illegally squashing competition by buying up rivals. https://t.co/pesJeJD3sJ" / Twitter
noting the Federal Trade Commission's suit against FB
Complaint for Injunctive and Other Equitable Relief (Public Redacted Version) - 1910134fbcomplaint.pdf

Then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Good.

Facebook is absolutely an out-of-control monopoly - one that has abused its market power to squash competition, manipulate democracies, and crush journalism.

Thank you @TishJames for leading the way.

(Maybe when Instagram spins off they can change the bottom tabs back)" / Twitter

 

[lpetrich]

Facebook encounters bipartisan backlash as AOC supports Trump administration's lawsuit | Fox News

The right-leaning Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) defended Facebook, calling the lawsuit "political theater dressed up as anti-trust law."

“The FTC suit asserts that Facebook acquired Instagram and What’s App to suppress competition," said Associate Director of CEI’s Center for Technology and Innovation Jessica Melugin.

"But when viewed through the lens of the U.S. antitrust law standard of consumer harm, the question becomes, so what? Facebook’s superior resources and expertise took Instagram from a modest and glitchy app to one with a billion users as of 2018."

So the right wing will be split, despite most US right-wingers professing deep love of capitalism.