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Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

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Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#21

Post by smoldesu »

p49k wrote: post #8
tqi wrote: post #4

How does breaking up Facebook help fight misinformation, polarization, engagement baiting, objectionable content, etc?

For starters, it would create a more level playing field to allow alternative products by companies with different values to flourish, rather than having them acquired before having a chance to become competitive. Look at WhatsApp, founded by an idealistic person whose product was shaped by his experience living under an oppressive government and who succeeded wildly under those values. But no one is going to turn do…

I don't think our government cares about any of that. They've turned a blind eye to app-store extortion for the better part of a decade, and they've made it clear that persecuting a domestic company like that is the last thing they want to do: and of course it is. Our government has nothing to lose from Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon leading the pack. If anything, it makes their job a whole lot easier with relation to surveillance and regulation.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#23

Post by UncleMeat »

p49k wrote: post #8
tqi wrote: post #4

How does breaking up Facebook help fight misinformation, polarization, engagement baiting, objectionable content, etc?

For starters, it would create a more level playing field to allow alternative products by companies with different values to flourish, rather than having them acquired before having a chance to become competitive. Look at WhatsApp, founded by an idealistic person whose product was shaped by his experience living under an oppressive government and who succeeded wildly under those values. But no one is going to turn do…

But TikTok is already absolutely enormous and would sweep up everything in the same way fb does. Breaking up Facebook also does nothing to change misinformation spread through Twitter and YouTube. The natural breakup points for Facebook also leave Facebook and Instagram in tact.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#26

Post by adfrhgeaq5hy »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

Well, duh. "Free market" does not mean "unregulated market". It requires that the market be free from monopolies and that all agents have complete information. Regulation and trust-busting are, in practice, required to bring about a free market.

Co-opting the term "free market" was a fantastically successful bit of propaganda.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#28

Post by BbzzbB »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #14

Sigh, another day, another blame of Facebook for destroying Snap. Fundamentally, products are always gonna get copied. Google tried to do it to Facebook, back when FB was the size that Snap was at the time, how well did that work? Fundamentally, while competing with a megacorp sucks monkey balls, Snap shot themselves in the foot with their boneheaded product strategy. They literally didn't invest in their Android app…

>They literally didn't invest in their Android app because they wanted to be exclusive

Mind blown, I had no idea Snapchat was iOS exclusive. I was thinking just yesterday about how Clubhouse's strategy may (who knows really) have backfired, it seems to me by betting on FOMO-manufacturing they just gave time for others (like Twitter Spaces) to catch up before they filled a niche.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#30

Post by tenebrisalietum »

nathias wrote: post #25

We should consider technologies a public good once they go over some threshold of users, they should then eiter be nationalized or regulated as public or broken up.

So then what if social networks capped the number of users at 1 below that threshold? For example, if nationalization occurs at 1 million users, what if all social networks limited the number of accounts to 999,999?.

Personally I think that would be awesome. Imagine if every town, city, and borough of very large cities had their own independent social network or networks.

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