61–70 of 236 posts
I think the very unhealthy dominance of Facebook will only start to properly recede when countries outside the USA start to block its use. This is a highly predatory company that takes away sovereignty in each nation's cyberspace and it really only makes sense for foreign countries to block it and either let their own national corporate replacements emerge (as China has done) or foster the use of open social networks…
I don't see how having national backed social media platforms to the likes china does is a better alternative for end users compared to facebook. If you are a proponent for open speech this will accomplish the opposite since it simplifies state issued censorship. I understand that bashing on facebook is a popular narrative here and they have made significant mistakes but it can hardly be argued the platform doesn't b…
BBC is technically national but at the same time pretty independent in its reporting.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Antitrust legislation is not designed to protect other companies, it's designed to protect consumers. In the United States, when the Justice Department blocks a merger, it is not simply deciding to disallow the merger. It does not have the power to do so. Instead, the actual mechanism is via antitrust lawsuit. If the merger is likely to reduce competition to such an extent that it would harm consumers, and if the Jus…
I don't think the legal code for preventing acquisitions says anything about consumers. 15 USC §18 says "No person engaged in commerce or in any activity affecting commerce shall acquire, directly or indirectly, the whole or any part of the stock or other share capital and no person subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission shall acquire the whole or any part of the assets of another person engaged…
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>But why are acquisitions anti-competitive? Because now there's less competition.
Instagram didn't have to sell. Less competition isn't the same thing as preventing competition. For example, imagine three restaurants competing. Two of them make an agreement with a common supplier to shut out the third competitor. That is what I think of as anti-competitive.
Buying a competitor so they can't compete with you is preventing competition. You might have a definition that says it's not, but that just means your definition is wrong. The FTC and United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division examine every significant merger to test whether or not it's anti-competitive. Every government has a department looking at mergers and acquisitions for this reason (https://www.ftc.gov/policy/international/competition-consume...).
I think the very unhealthy dominance of Facebook will only start to properly recede when countries outside the USA start to block its use. This is a highly predatory company that takes away sovereignty in each nation's cyberspace and it really only makes sense for foreign countries to block it and either let their own national corporate replacements emerge (as China has done) or foster the use of open social networks…
I don't see how having national backed social media platforms to the likes china does is a better alternative for end users compared to facebook. If you are a proponent for open speech this will accomplish the opposite since it simplifies state issued censorship. I understand that bashing on facebook is a popular narrative here and they have made significant mistakes but it can hardly be argued the platform doesn't b…
I think the very unhealthy dominance of Facebook will only start to properly recede when countries outside the USA start to block its use. This is a highly predatory company that takes away sovereignty in each nation's cyberspace and it really only makes sense for foreign countries to block it and either let their own national corporate replacements emerge (as China has done) or foster the use of open social networks…
In what world is having geo-specific social networks run by corporations a good outcome? "Like China" is a pretty bad north star for almost any country.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s over a hundred and twenty years of antitrust enforcement in this country. Why does HN insist on reinventing antitrust law from their own intuition about what “anti-competitive” means?
There’s over a hundred and twenty year of antitrust law that says that conduct is improper if it leads to higher prices for consumers. Why does Yale insist that antitrust can apply when prices are 0?
"Consumers" on Facebook are ad buyers, not users. Prices aren't 0 - Facebook's revenue was $70bn in 2019. That comes from businesses buy ads. Everything Facebook does to dominate the social media space is about selling more ads for more money. That's why they buy competitors, shut down rivals, and aggressively do what they can to drive prices for the ads on their platforms up.
I think the very unhealthy dominance of Facebook will only start to properly recede when countries outside the USA start to block its use. This is a highly predatory company that takes away sovereignty in each nation's cyberspace and it really only makes sense for foreign countries to block it and either let their own national corporate replacements emerge (as China has done) or foster the use of open social networks…
I don't see how having national backed social media platforms to the likes china does is a better alternative for end users compared to facebook. If you are a proponent for open speech this will accomplish the opposite since it simplifies state issued censorship. I understand that bashing on facebook is a popular narrative here and they have made significant mistakes but it can hardly be argued the platform doesn't b…
You don't think other sites can provide the same kind of value, while being far more respectful of your privacy and better reflecting the values of a country's culture? I sure as hell would prefer a German Facebook rather than the Facebook we have now that drowns out all other alternatives while allowing hate speech to spread unabated and trampling all over my right to privacy and to control my data. It's not even the fact that an alternative needs to be state-backed. It would be enough for a government to ban Facebook to allow local alternatives to grow a user base.
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The paper lists five different things as anticompetitive, why do you disagree with their assessment? Allowing Vine to use your API and then blocking it after Twitter acquired it seems anticompetitive.
Because none of the things besides acquisition is anti-competitive in the context of anti-trust law. Facebook doesn’t owe competitors their data. It’s absurd to construe not actively helping competitors by giving them your data as “anti-competitive.”
Have you read antitrust law? The Sherman Act is vague enough that anything that could be considered anticompetitive would violate the law. The "Rule of Reason."
> It’s absurd to construe not actively helping competitors by giving them your data as “anti-competitive.”
Publicly agreeing to an agreement allowing something and then changing the terms to control how competitive they can be is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how having national backed social media platforms to the likes china does is a better alternative for end users compared to facebook. If you are a proponent for open speech this will accomplish the opposite since it simplifies state issued censorship. I understand that bashing on facebook is a popular narrative here and they have made significant mistakes but it can hardly be argued the platform doesn't b…
> I understand that bashing on facebook is a popular narrative here and they have made significant mistakes but it can hardly be argued the platform doesn't bring value to a significant share of people. You don't think other sites can provide the same kind of value, while being far more respectful of your privacy and better reflecting the values of a country's culture? I sure as hell would prefer a German Facebook ra…
* To operate in multiple countries so people can stay connected you have to abide by local laws even if they don't match the typical values.
* Social media is inherently winner-takes all due to the requirement of critical mass and connectedness. The winners have shifted over time (myspace) before but it seems harder to do than with other consumer services.
* Moderation of billions is a hard unsolved problem and is a game you can't win. You walk the tight rope of either allowing hate speech or being too overreaching in censoring. I'm not sure other startups will solve this any better.
* I'm personally not a huge fan of governments messing with competition, especially not for services where the people themselves choose to use it or not. Some share of people like using facebook and I don't feel banning them for the sake of their success is the right solution. While I'm from europe myself I feel over-regulating is one (among many) of the reasons why there are almost no dominant tech players here.
* Monetisation and use of user data. While there are other monetisation paths many people are actually ok with the trade of their data for features and should have this choice. The larger tech companies probably have some of the most well organised and privacy aware advertising platforms compared to smaller players where the likelihood of privacy incidents is arguably higher.