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Professor Who Coined Term 'Net Neutrality' Thinks It's Time To Break Up Facebook (theverge.com)
pgmrdlm shares a report from The Verge: Best known for coining the phrase "net neutrality" and his book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, Wu has a new book coming out in November called The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age. In it, he argues compellingly for a return to aggressive antitrust enforcement in the style of Teddy Roosevelt, saying that Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other huge tech companies are a threat to democracy as they get bigger and bigger. "We live in America, which has a strong and proud tradition of breaking up companies that are too big for inefficient reasons," Wu told me on this week's Vergecast. "We need to reverse this idea that it's not an American tradition. We've broken up dozens of companies."
"I think if you took a hard look at the acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, the argument that the effects of those acquisitions have been anticompetitive would be easy to prove for a number of reasons," says Wu. And breaking up the company wouldn't be hard, he says. "What would be the harm? You'll have three competitors. It's not 'Oh my god, if you get rid of WhatsApp and Instagram, well then the whole world's going to fall apart.' It would be like 'Okay, now you have some companies actually trying to offer you an alternative to Facebook.'" Breaking up Facebook (and other huge tech companies like Google and Amazon) could be simple under the current law, suggests Wu. But it could also lead to a major rethinking of how antitrust law should work in a world where the giant platform companies give their products away for free, and the ability for the government to restrict corporate power seems to be diminishing by the day. And it demands that we all think seriously about the conditions that create innovation. "I think everyone's steering way away from the monopolies, and I think it's hurting innovation in the tech sector," says Wu.
"I think if you took a hard look at the acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, the argument that the effects of those acquisitions have been anticompetitive would be easy to prove for a number of reasons," says Wu. And breaking up the company wouldn't be hard, he says. "What would be the harm? You'll have three competitors. It's not 'Oh my god, if you get rid of WhatsApp and Instagram, well then the whole world's going to fall apart.' It would be like 'Okay, now you have some companies actually trying to offer you an alternative to Facebook.'" Breaking up Facebook (and other huge tech companies like Google and Amazon) could be simple under the current law, suggests Wu. But it could also lead to a major rethinking of how antitrust law should work in a world where the giant platform companies give their products away for free, and the ability for the government to restrict corporate power seems to be diminishing by the day. And it demands that we all think seriously about the conditions that create innovation. "I think everyone's steering way away from the monopolies, and I think it's hurting innovation in the tech sector," says Wu.
There's a simpler way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
If they want to curate content according to their political bias, then treat them like the politically-biased media outlets they are, legally liable for the content they host, instead of platforms under "safe harbor" protections. If they want to continue to be treated like platforms, then they can keep their hands off their political opponents' speech.
Why do I bother coming here anymore?
Professor Who???
exactly do you break up a company who offers a service for free?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Microsoft has fallen below the zone they were once in.
Corporatism != Free Market
Facebook has grown because it offered the best social platform for users. The point of social platforms is to connect with everyone else. Fragmentation means people needing to belong to and check multiple platforms. Trying to force competition won't solve any user issues. However, once Facebook stops providing a compelling service, people will move on their own. The same as they gave up MySpace and the same as they rejected Google+. The market chose Facebook and will purge it when time comes.
The same with Google. There were plenty of entrenched search services when Google came to be. Users chose it because it was better. The old search services died because they didn't evolve. If Google stops being the best fit option, people will go somewhere else. They already have choices like Bing and Duck Duck Go. As the service is free, people are choosing based on functionality, not on price. Those that don't like the privacy price of Google are opting for other services. You can't just declare another search service is required and then force the public to use it so that you can claim to have multiple services with comparable market share.
If people were given a choice of all you can eat steak or beets at equal cost, odds are that the majority would choose steak. When you remove cost and scarcity, the premium option will dominate. Digital services don't have scarcity like physical products do. It's a different economy.
why do I care about a guy whose biggest contribution to this subject is clever phrasing?
Facebook has grown because it offered the best social platform for users.
As stated in the summary: Facebook has grown by purchasing their competitors. The summary mentions WhatsApp and Instagram specifically.
Your comment about the problem with fragmentation is an example of why Facebook needs to be broken up by an outside entity: they have a natural monopoly, since real competition from startups would lead to fragmentation.
I've said this before, but if the government came along and broke up the company by splitting off Facebook's front-end from its back-end, then we could have competition on the front-end without fragmentation of the userbase. This scenario can only happen through regulation though.
These proprietary social networks are bad for free speech.
I have no problem with facebook, google, twitter, except that they concentrate the internet in the hands of a few large companies.
We need open platforms like HTML, TCP/IP, Email, Newsgroups, etc.
All old retrograde stuff according to the children. But there isn't one of these social networks that couldn't be made P2P or something that anyone could set up their own personal server for that interlinked with each other.
A 20 dollar raspberry pi could host the overwhelming majority of individuals on social media on a 1:1 basis. Sure, no one wants to spend 20 dollars. But that's not the point. The point is that it "could". We talk about these vast datacenters... but per capita they're nothing special.
The point is logistically they should be pretty easy to replace. The primary barriers are software that has to be built to do the job... much of which already exists in one form or another... and there is something of a branding issue.
Everyone wants to be on the biggest social network and no one wants to be on even the second largest.
This further proves the need for an open platform. An open platform could contain ALL social networks in a common frame work like web pages. And you could say "but how do we link these little islands of servers and users into a larger collective?"... anyone that knows anything and thinks about it can see the obvious. An open platform would permit user information, group information, etc to flow and bleed between the servers in much the way that someone at kickme@yahoo.com can send an email to someone at kickme@google.com.
There's no need to have all the data controlled by one company to facilitate communication.
Here someone might say "that explains direct messages but how do you have groups etc"... you have the groups set up on any of a million different hosts, invite people, and there you have it. Same way facebook etc works from the user's perspective.
With distributed hosting qualms about freedom of speech become irrelevant. It would be like losing your google email address. Sure... you might have liked that thing, but it doesn't stop you from sending emails.
And that also keeps such hosts to account because they know that you can do that... and thus it becomes largely irrelevant. The interest of biased people to effect who can and cannot speak is nullified.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I don't like Facebook either but its not a monopoly, nor is it required in anyway to use the internet. Anyone could come up with the next social network thing anytime now or you can just NOT use Facebook. It isn't like an OS or a browser that is necessary for use or access to anything. Facebook or Twitter are tools of convenience and can easily be done without. If you don't like what is being said filter it out or don't use either.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
and blew it...with Microsoft. They should have been broken up just like Standard Oil. But they were not and that just created a precedent for companies like Facebook and Amazon and Google. We reap what we sow.
As stated in the summary: Facebook has grown by purchasing their competitors. The summary mentions WhatsApp and Instagram specifically.
While this is true, so far they have not bought their competitors to shut them down, or to raise prices to the detriment of consumers. They are building a monopoly, but so far, it is not harmful from an economic perspective, and unfortunately I don't think anti-trust law is concerned with privacy, so the case for breaking up Facebook is not strong.
Apple would be a much juicier target, especially as they recently became the world's first trillion dollar company (with Amazon close behind). Splitting out the AppStore with the condition that Apple does not get any favorable terms compared with the general public could precipitate opening up the platform to competing App Stores or sideloading, or at least AppStore Inc being forced to lower its margin to something more palatable to keep that scenario at bay.
Look, I don't get my news from Facebook. Local, National, World. Be it political or otherwise. I don't give a shit about who they ban, and who they don't. I don't give a shit on who they censor, and who they don't. Just don't care. Face book has purchased the following which was competition. At least they didn't kill them. They own Tinder, dating. They own Instagram, another form of social media. And a couple others were mentioned in the article. My profile was not used by that company that tried to sway the election, can't remember who. I checked from a link on Washington Post. My news comes from major media sites. Washington Post, Time, CNN, USA Today, CBSNews, ABCNews, AP, Reuters, Federation of American Scientists(For CRS reports prepared by Library Of Congress). The only right leaning site I read, which is not completely pro Trump is National Review. If I can not find multiple sources, that are accepted by all. I don't believe it. I prefer links to the actual source. The ONLY information that I actually believe at first glance are statistical reports provided by various government agencies. They provide background and links. CRS reports are a gold mine, if you can find a site that does not black out areas. They are very informative. I seen a comment that people want monopolies, they don't want to look around. As much as I don't like big government, I think this is one time that it needs force people to choose. Just like labels listing ingredients on food, hazards of products. Make people choose. Do not let them get swayed by everyone use's it. Hell, for no other reason. Having few major choices brings out the hate. Enough of that shit
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
"Look over here! See? We're thinking about maybe eventually doing something someday! (Pay no attention to the massive personal data collection feast that every-single-damn-corporation and government in the entire bloody world is gorging on behind the curtain)"
WHY do people give so many shits for instabook and facegram? It's not something anybody actually needs to begin with. For fucks sake. Big tech is not "The internet"... in fact, the case has been made that these companies are big evil time eaters that provide value only to every users political and ideological enemies. (and the great american advertising succubus that keeps the 1% balls deep in our bank accounts) These companies have been enjoying a wave for a while now, but it wont last forever. This "problem" is already beginning to solve itself.
Really want to accelerate the change? Here's a few ideas that nobody seems to be floating... teach people what propaganda looks like. Start actually funding education as the critically important resource that it is. Tell people to stop trusting the media. Tell them to start verifying the information they are being given. Teach them how to fact check things themselves, instead of relying on the next channel down to do it for them. Tell people to think critically, and trust only themselves.
I bet things will start to change pretty fucking fast. Yeah, I know. Fat fucking chance of any of that.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
I honestly want the monopolies to pretend to strengthen democracy.
... is horrifying. If Amazon for example were to centralize and when meat was ordered, then it would be defrosted and processed based on demand... it would make such a massive difference in our overhead to the planet.
At this point in time,
Jeff Bezos owns Amazon and news papers and whatever else
Satya Nadella is in control of one of the biggest new networks (which slashdotters will never see because it's through Edge and Bing)
The Alphabet boys are in control of what almost everyone in the world sees
Zuck and Dorsey could easily control a MASSIVE amount of what everyone sees.
What's also important is that most of these people seem to have some inkling of wanting to be good people. They're all stumbling their way through trying to be nice and fair and more powerful than the leaders of the UN nations.
Imagine if Facebook were broken into 20 different news and social media sites that were all controlled by basically the same people? It would be bigger, not smaller than it is today.
So... why can't these megabillionairs launch democracy sites which would break the two party system and allow equal access to all potential candidates. I mean seriously, politics is about gaining votes... which is about visibility. Zuck, Dorsey, Alphabet Boys and Nadella could easily outdo all the other mass media outlets in the world and offer a real political platform where "He who has the billion dollar fund raising power wins" isn't how it will work. They could make it a platform which works somewhat like a game or a reality TV series where interested candidates can compete on the merits of their beliefs over time and build up viewership.
These companies could capitalize by making their own kind of Apprentice style TV series that would allow the people to judge how different candidates lead and make decisions. But instead of making it about "You're fired" which still seems to be a mantra for Trump, make shows that simulate real political situations. Have episodes where they are confronted with issues like trying to mediate between Democrats and Republicans who disagree with each other just because they're both stupid. Or other episodes where as president they are presented with a bill to sign or veto which makes no sense, is nothing but 1000 pages of ear marks with a stupid name that exists only because congress can't discuss anything anymore. I for example would veto it and say "Don't send it back until you've actually read the thing and made the contents reflect what the title says... and actually discuss it... none of this passing the shit around until we get all our earmarks in bullshit. If you do that and the bill still sounds good, and you still have the votes, I'll sign it... otherwise, don't waste my time."
Imagine if it were possible for political science majors in school to learn more about administering the government rather than learning to establish, collect, distribute and manipulate political capital?
These mega-corporations are well positioned to make this happen in the real world. There's nothing wrong with Facebook interfering with what people seem to call the democratic system so long as they actually do it fairly and in the right way.
That being said... we need the mega-monopolies... consider Amazon grocery delivery. Instead of having 10,000 stores spread out over the whole country selling the same shit, there could be 50-100 well managed and automated warehouses. That means a lot of really important things.
1) Waste management... any idea how much meat we produce for no other reason than to stock shelves and make it look more attractive to buy and to provide selection? What about milk? What about vegetables? Do you really think there's a world food shortage? Is there a real resource consumption problem? Consumption means that we... well consume it. We don't. The massive amount of meat, fish, dairy etc... we produce and then simply throw away... in its packaging
Nope... that was back before we had mass real-time media and we didn't fully understand how incredibly fucked the entire government was.
... instead of representing the people.... which means ALL THE PEOPLE... not just your own voters have decided instead that Team Red or Team Blue need absolute control of the government to make decisions without discussing anything with the bat shit crazy people on the other team.
Then there was FDR who had the national radio and used it as a weapon against others in Washington to give him near-dictator powers. And then he completely without foresight fucked up the political system in America by imposing term limits which meant that politicians who have real plans that take more than 8 years to accomplish... won't.
When we got TV and had 1-3 channels, we had hope in people like Kennedy who was raised by a small group to a beacon of hope.
When we got 30 channels, we got CNN and things went rapidly south from there. People found out that we didn't need just 1 hour of news a day... we needed 24.
Then we got C-SPAN, BBC, MSNBC, Bloomberg, etc... and we ended up with 10,000 hours of broadcast news a day.
Then the news networks realized that they needed to differentiate themselves from each other in order to earn ratings and keep enough viewers to justify their jobs. So they started catering to groups.
And then came the Internet.
And the RSS feed.
And the Tweets.
And now in order for each news source to survive, they have to offer something. And what do they offer? Sports!!!
They've turned Republicans and Democrats into team Red and team Blue. They have actively stacked the teams... not with political leaders.... not we law makers... not with anything like that. They stacked the decks with "Good TV"!!!
So... the presidential campaigns are now reality TV series which have gone so far as to turn the presidential debates into a competition with a score board and which betting sights actually operate on. They've made sure that all the players on both teams are going to fight each other tooth and nail... not because of right and wrong but because of Team Red and Team Blue.
Both parties
No... neither party was ever sane... but what we have now is not democracy... It's the roman senate shortly before it was dissolved and an empire was declared.
Let me tell you something I know... anyone who backs a team is generally incompetent. Anyone who wants one team or player or the other to win... is well... I hope natural selection will eventually do away with those. We are a single team. There is no white hats and black hats. We are in this together. But so long as America has Team Red and Team Blue, there is no hope for American civilization to elevate itself out of the second world again.
That stifles innovation. Once you have a standardized protocol, everyone on that standard has to agree to changes and roll them out at the same time. The only way to really innovate requires someone start a completely new service that's not part of the open network.
It's correct that people want one point of access to a thing, but nobody really wants a monopoly.
Assuming that one inevitably leads to the other is part of the problem.
For example, with the video streaming sites, what we really need is for them to collaborate on the platform (how you login and watch shit) but compete on the content, meaning that if you watch American Gods on the shared platform, Amazon gets paid a share of your subscription, yet if you watch Luke Cage on the same platform, Netflix gets paid instead
That would be a great outcome for viewers but won't happen as long as these monopolist assholes can afford to be duplicating the effort of making yet another streaming service
The same sort of thing could play out for chat apps or social networks: common protocol with interoperable services built on top.
If you don't like how Facebook is fucking up your government, it should be trivial to leave them but take all of your data and existing social connections with you.
Of course, none of that will happen unless these companies are broken up into something smaller, and forced into a collaborative state
If you think that this is unreasonable, impossible etc, consider that the Internet you're on right now is designed in this way already.
Just imagine how bad things would be if you couldn't even send an email because the recipient is on Outlook but you're on GMail.
That's what the instant messaging market looks like right now.
"Fragmentation means people needing to belong to and check multiple platforms"
No, it doesn't. How many email services do you connect to? There are thousands of them and still you don't have any problem to get and send emails from/to anyother. How can this be?
Hint: the fact that things are a given way doesn't mean it must be the only possible one.
Breaking up Facebook seems not really beneficial honestly but i may be missing something here. IMHO all the social platforms twitter, facebook, ... should not be in the hands of individual companies at all. Instead they should be free and open like Usenet, email, the web, DNS, ... is.
About breaking companies up. I am surprised apple is not mentioned. Their way of locking the hardware and software together should just not be. There should be a apple hw and a separate apple software company and neither should be allowed to only support the other. This would result also in significantly more competition as other manufactures would not have to beat apple in both but just one.
"I think everyone's steering way away from the monopolies, and I think it's hurting innovation in the tech sector..."
Monopolies exist everywhere (not just the tech sector), but what has truly killed innovation is the patent system.
When companies amass tens of thousands of patents they'll never actually use in huge patent "war chests", it only serves one purpose; to allow Greed to stifle and control innovation.
Innovation reform is pointless without patent reform. You can't throw a stick 10 feet without hitting something that is patented 746 ways, to include throwing a stick 10 feet. When the world is controlled at that level, any attempt to innovate becomes more and more pointless and frustrating.
After "ma-bell" was broken up in the 80's? Perhaps it is time to break up google, facebook, twitter etc?
TFS: It's good style to use the complete name of the subject of an article at least once. But yeah, this is Slashdot, so carry on editors.
Have gnu, will travel.
How many email services do you connect to? There are thousands of them and still you don't have any problem to get and send emails from/to anyother. How can this be?
Because email is not a social network, it is point to point. Even NNTP delivery was fragmented, though. You'd have to go to specific news servers to get access to certain hierarchies, let alone groups. Being technically able to share information doesn't guarantee that it will happen.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Facebook has grown because it offered the best social platform for users.
Hmmm. "Best" isn't defined here, not by you and not by context, other than the vague inference that because it grew it must be the best. Facebook grew because it was in the right spot at the right time, and now the "network effect" of its accumulated base is a significant barrier to entry to competition.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Facebook has grown by both natural monopoly and aquisition. Growth by natural monopoly is not prohibited by, and not fixable by, antitrust law as it currently stands. Growth by acquisition can be prohibited (Hart-Scott-Rodino), but for that very reason the government cannot simply undo previous acquisitions -- those requiring antitrust review were government pre-approved.
Your analysis assume that those startups provide real competition. Many startups fail because their business is inferior. Again, growth by natural monopoly is not prohibited by, and not fixable by, antitrust law as it currently stands. If one company becomes monstrously large because it is better than the alternatives, that's not a problem that needs to be fixed. It's when it uses that size to lever into other lines of business or impair competition by anticompetitive means that there's a problem.
No, you couldn't, because that doesn't address the antitrust problem that you've complained about. We've been through this before with the reversal of the Microsoft breakup order. Monopolizing behavior in the operating system market did not justify breaking up the company by category. You've complained about the acquisition of particular services. You could break off those services (if "you" are not the government attempting to reverse a specific pre-approval, but instead, for example, a private party) but you can't simply declare that the back-end is a separate company that must provide support services to all comers.
That back-end-to-front-end synergy was organically grown and not an antitrust violation.
Interesting comment. A few points...
Then there was FDR who...fucked up the political system in America by imposing term limits which meant that politicians who have real plans that take more than 8 years to accomplish... won't.
This proposed and passed by Republicans after FDR died.
Then the news networks realized that they needed to differentiate themselves from each other in order to earn ratings and keep enough viewers to justify their jobs. So they started catering to groups.
After the Fairness Doctrine was repealed, networks eventually realized that news could now be entertainment. And profitable beyond their dreams.
They've turned Republicans and Democrats into team Red and team Blue. They have actively stacked the teams... not with political leaders.... not we law makers... not with anything like that. They stacked the decks with "Good TV"!!!
"Good TV", good line!
Both parties ... instead of representing the people.... which means ALL THE PEOPLE... not just your own voters have decided instead that Team Red or Team Blue need absolute control of the government to make decisions without discussing anything with the bat shit crazy people on the other team.
The trouble is, each side will say that their decisions *are* "for the good of all the people".
No... neither party was ever sane... but what we have now is not democracy... It's the roman senate shortly before it was dissolved and an empire was declared.
Whether or not we've ever had a democracy can be debated. Also, the Roman senate was never dissolved. The label "Empire" was a later conclusion of historians, and was not declared as such at the time...for a century or two the Ceasars played the "Republic Game" where they followed all the old forms. People were fine with that for a while because they were tired of civil war.
Let me tell you something I know... anyone who backs a team is generally incompetent. Anyone who wants one team or player or the other to win... is well... I hope natural selection will eventually do away with those.
I guess eons of tribal evolution has produced a humanity that is generally incompetent. No argument there.
We are a single team.
Continuing with the metaphor, when a single team gets everyone together, what do they do? They break down into different squads and have intramural competition. There may be awards and honors for being the best squad. Competition is strong. And if there is no "other team" to compete with, to beat, then the intramurals will evolve into...different teams.
There is no white hats and black hats.
Have you watched any old westerns? The term has a very long history. And goes back even further if you include different colors.
thx, sr
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
"Being technically able to share information doesn't guarantee that it will happen."
No, of course not, reality being my guest. Conversely, that it is not happening now doesn't mean it can't happen. Which turns back to the parent poster: there's no technical limitation so that having multiple "social network" providers forceully leads to fragmentation, which means he is wrong.
Who the heck is forced to use Facebook? If you think it is the only place on the Internet, then I guess it should be broken up. But is anyone really that stupid?
If you really hate Facebook so much, start promoting alternatives like Diaspora. (a free distributed model social network). But what you'll find is that people don't want to sign up for Diaspora any more than they want to keep their Facebook account.
The fad behind the "social network" is fading away, as people are transforming how they use these services in their everyday lives. Maybe Facebook will learn to adapt to the new realities, but I really doubt it.
P.S. my favorite social network was Usenet and IRC.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
When we get mega-corporations that compete in more than one arena the consumer ALWAYS loses. Comcast has local monopilies around the US and can command whatever price they want for their shit service - and NOBODY can do anything about it. The consumer has to suck it up and pay up for dropped connections and piss poor speed, or do without. The internet is becoming a necessity, so most will cough up the dough.
Now imagine Amazon had a stranglehold on something that's a true necessity like food distribution. They own Whole Foods and move forward with storehouses as you suggested. They control the price that the consumer pays - and profit from both the food and shipping. They can command whatever price they like, either pay up or starve (literally). They already have had some lawsuits regarding price fixing (Apple is who turns up for ebook fixing - seem to remember Amazon had some hand in it too), so I don't believe for a second Amazon would be altruistic in their pricing.
Keep the competition fair and consumers win. Let Amazon Shipping compete with UPS, FedEx and USPS on shipping and logistics, and Whole Foods (without the Amazon umbrella) compete with Smiths/Wegmans/Albertsons/whatever on food.
facebook, google, twitter, instagram, etc., are all free to the end user, just as tv and radio were, you just agree to get targeted ads in return. seems like a fair trade. the issue comes down to censorship of the content (and ads?), directly, or indirectly through network neutrality and the like. ethically we should level that through legislation and regulation. any solutions?
nothing to see here - move along
precisely - don't like the free service, use another, no one is forcing you
nothing to see here - move along
"Email is not point to point. TO/CC/BCC all has the option to give multiple recipients."
It's too bad you don't know how email works. When you put a bunch of recipients into an email, that same email is sent to each of the recipients in turn, with jiggered headers. And it's point to point, as a connection is made to each server, and a copy created for each recipient. And it has been always thus, although UUCP nodes used to do all communication through a single smarthost which would forward the individual messages along to the next hop.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"