Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

ftc.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 736 posts

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#531

Post by will_pseudonym »

majani wrote: post #274
ergocoder wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they originally happened, people thought Zuck was insane. Instagram for $1B? WhatsApp for $17B? Really? FTC definitely isn't competent enough to understand how visionary the acquisition was. To be fair, not many was that competent. Otherwise, Google and other cash-loaded companies would have acquired these companies with higher offer. It could have easily been Twitter + Vines + Periscope where the acquired produ…

To be fair, that Whatsapp deal still looks insane. Still no meaningful revenue coming from that end 8 years later

Except the revenue that they potentially would have been losing out on had they not acquired their competitor.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#532

Post by mike00632 »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #406
lbsnake7 wrote: post #30

When Facebook first went public, an older relative asked me if he should invest in Facebook. My only insight was being an internet user at the time and I said no, there was no reason that Facebook wouldn’t be another MySpace. Facebook's only value was their users and users were historically very finicky and moved around platforms at will. I argued that Facebook would make no money and wouldn’t be around in a couple o…

Facebook was smart, it wasn't just a social network, it also was an apps and games platform. Remember Farmville? And also many bands ended up putting their merch and tour dates up on FB because it was just so easy. Then recently it grew a marketplace to take on craigslist and ebay, and added videos (making it a mini youtube or tiktok). And let's not forget that FB groups are the go-to place for many hobbies. Into old…

Have you ever sold anything on Facebook Marketplace? It's shockingly easy. I'm relatively late to the party. When I used it for the first time earlier this year I felt like it was the wave of the future.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#533

Post by drstewart »

dalbasal wrote: post #500
theanarcrist wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree and find the attempt at a breakup a bit frustrating. This is an action that could have profoundly disruptive effect and it's not really clear what the positives or negatives would be. For instance, FB has invested massively in trust and safety people operations and AI. What happens to that investment when IG is spun off? Laying out laws and regulations so the market works as intended (no doubt with adjustment…

Tough. There is more at stake than FB recovering its investment into IG. Besides... they will get to sell it, probably at a profit. They got to own it for 8 years, enjoyed the benefits of lowered competition. They will be fine. I agree that this should have been prevented in the first place, but we are where we are. Controversially, I don't think ordinary rule of law can apply to FAANG-scale monopolies. There's no wa…

Imagine being so callous about putting 50,000+ people out of work overnight and calling it basically nothing.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#534

Post by mike00632 »

chc wrote: post #46
nickpp wrote: post #35

Monopoly of what? Some other social networks I use every day or so: Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok and various forums and communities like this one, which in my mind are pretty similar to a social network. And since WhatsApp is a chat app, how about all the other chat apps I am using? iMessage, Slack, Teams. Does this action has any merit or is it just the usual political posturing and games?

Could the average Facebook user readily replace their use of Facebook with LinkedIn or TikTok? I am not a big user of any of those products, but I have the distinct impression that the answer is no.

This is anecdotal but I started using TikTok during the pandemic and it has greatly reduced my use of Facebook. Mindlessly scrolling the TikTok ForYouPage is noticably superior to scrolling the Facebook feed

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#535

Post by kyriee »

readams wrote: post #418
arthurcolle wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social graphs are really useful for detecting idea contagion though. Facebook obviously has the tools to fight propaganda, they have one of the most granular datasets of people data ever assembled in human history. They are just addicted to the ad dollars. It is a shame they killed their delightful API. Good riddance to them.

Seeing sharing in a social graph is easy. Defining what is "propaganda" is all but impossible.

The actually have metrics for things such as dividedness and unrest. I wouldn’t be surprised they could do an analysis on propaganda.

Also, not asking right wing “news” orgs to be fact checkers or having GOP operatives override content policy team decisions regarding misleading stories that were reported by users would be another great way to reduce “propaganda”.

It’s not a technically unsolvable problem, it’s just one Facebook doesn’t want to solve. Don’t give them a free pass.

They are a multi billion dollar company, they have the all the ressources they need if they cared.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#536

Post by Talanes »

not2b wrote: post #355
arilotter wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People give Facebook their access willingly and they know what information they input into Facebook. I don't think this is true. Facebook tracks your activity all over the web on thousands of third-party sites and builds a unique profile to identify you, without regard for you having an account. You can't opt out of this if you don't have a Facebook account. Some of these "social graph" features will do things like…

If you haven't consented to share your contacts with Facebook, but two people have consented who have you as a phone contact, then you're a link. This can be "interesting" when one of the parties has a duty to maintain privacy, like a psychiastrist. See this article: https://splinternews.com/facebook-recommended-that-this-psyc...

This explains a lot of the weirder suggestions I got in college. People I had done a group project with, but never communicated with outside of in-person, would show up as suggestions all the time. I'm sure in each of those cases there was one person in the group who everyone was in phone contact with.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#538

Post by kyriee »

meekmind wrote: post #475
arthurcolle wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk, I really don't think so. shrugs

It is. It's possible to have two completely valid, objective, and opposed positions in an argument where multiple different groups have a vested interest in one position being more popular than the other. Which one is propaganda? The one you disagree with? The one that doesn't fit with your preconceived notions? The one that doesn't fit with your personality profile? Both positions? Neither position? Do we just shut…

How about a simpler principle: harm reduction.

Letting people be mislead about vaccines harms people, letting people get brainwashed into mistrusting the legitimacy of their institutions harms people, letting people use their platform to incite genocide harms people.

They actually have metric to measure those things, it’s just that they prefer to dial down the heat, not kill it. It’s just too good for engagement.

Don’t “both sides” death and misery. It’s not a philosophy debate.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#539

Post by mike00632 »

fullshark wrote: post #416

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3817850 > Can someone please tell me how Instagram's actual content is worth anything? We're talking about photo-filtered cell phone camera shots here. Facebook doesn't need a user acquisition ploy. I guess maybe it's a move to keep users in Facebook, but I'd be willing to bet a million bucks that almost everyone is discovering Instagram content via Facebook or Twitter. Seems like…

Funny. I'm not on Twitter and only discover Twitter content through Facebook.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#540

Post by martin_drapeau »

horsawlarway wrote: post #413
martin_drapeau wrote: post #391

I can't help but step back and look at the trade wars between the US and China. China is gaining ground fast. US on the otherhand is turning to infighting by suing FB, Google and Amazon. Countries win through innovation. It's hard to innovate with such distractions. China must be happy cheering on its tech companies while the US is on the sidelines. Go figure...

I don't buy this for a fucking second. You don't "cheer on" the fucking global market leader. You force them to allow 3rd parties to leverage their platform for innovative, derivative products. Facebook has been extremely hostile to any sort of 3rd party integration with their products. Break that shit up.

Facebook goes beyond the US jurisdiction. Only 10% of their users are in the US. How do you split up a company beyond your borders?

Really sounds to me lawyers will be at it for very long with no sure outcome.

Post reply on HN