Given the enormous issues the Uk has with (lack of) competition, as a Brit I find this peak British politics.
Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling
91–100 of 183 posts
Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
The phrase "cutting off the supply of gifs to rivals" may be one of the dumbest things I've ever read in my life. I honestly can't believe someone wrote that in a legal opinion. To me this smacks of our leaders, broadly, in the West being too old and too far removed from how people operate and live in the world today. This is like Lindsey Graham, who was once on the senate technology committee, admitting that he had…
> The phrase "cutting off the supply of gifs to rivals" may be one of the dumbest things I've ever read in my life. I honestly can't believe someone wrote that in a legal opinion. I would very much doubt that was the actual wording, that's most likely a paraphrasing by the author of this article. The final report is not released yet, but according to the summary pdf linked from https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/facebook-i…
> On this basis, we consider that Facebook would also have an incentive to foreclose its rivals from access to GIPHY.
That seems like a slightly more intelligent wording of the same bad argument to me. There’s no real limit on the supply of gifs on the internet, and they aren’t really in particularly high demand. In fact they’re already falling out of fashion with younger users. You’ll be hard pressed to find many people under 25 using them at all.
Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is of course complete nonsense and UK has had a competition regulator that was effective and able to operate independently of EU even before Brexit. Every EU country can set the rules what companies can operate in every member state and how, and obviously UK was always able to do this. (For a simple example - look at France constantly fining and regulating US tech giants without having to ask Brussels for permi…
Willfully representing how the EU works is a longstanding tradition of UK media. The EU even has a dedicated page for debunking British tabloid media lies. edit: sadly I can't find it now, newer post-truth issues like Covid-19 seem to drown it out in my search engines
here you go: https://wayback.archive-it.org/11980/20200131183933/https://...
The original URL was https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/ . It seems the EC itself pulled this page, and the live page now redirects to the above page which seems to contain blog-style entries for every item, rather than just a list of hyperlinks to all articles.
But the original full list is still available via the wayback machine as well: https://web.archive.org/web/20160329163353/https://blogs.ec....
For three decades, the European Commission London Office’s ‘Euromyths’ initiative tried to shed light on the facts behind stories about the EU in the UK media [..] Those rebuttals are now digitalised and searchable on this archived site, alongside more recent material [..] We hope the site continues to be useful, at least as a historical record of how parts of the British media sometimes presented the EU and how the Commission responded.
Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling
#94At first I thought Giphy might have been a UK company, but no. It's an American company founded in New York. Ignoring the merits of the judgement—ridiculous as they are—does no one sense terrible outreach in issuing a ruling on a merger about two companies which are in no way related to the country issuing it? This has terrible repercussions for the American tech economy. Every big tech company would think twice befo…
> Every big tech company would think twice before acquiring another company . Great! As an American, I'm thrilled there are governments in the world that still place people & competition at a higher priority than Mark's wallet. My government has completely given up on the idea of anti-trust enforcement.
Meta is getting creamed by TikTok and the market in general without the need for regulation by European bureaucrats that you haven’t elected democratically.
They could just as easy create regulations which are impossible for startups to follow that actually cement big tech into power unintentionally
If you want more enforcement, vote in government in your own country. At least we might be able to fix that later.
Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling
#95Non sure why everyone is so happy to kill the remaining of big employer, in the crisis year. Facebook as social media kind is dying regardless of this giphy decision.
It feels like a scare tactic. They're picking on the ever decrepit Facebook to warn the others they aren't untouchable.
Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling
#96Why care what the UK has to say about US matters? Especially about whether a social media company can own a meme gif repo... There's got to be much more pressing matters for them right?
> Why care what the UK has to say about US matters? Because US regulators are too lazy/corrupt/starved to do the job they exist to do. Someone has to reign in oligopolies amassing even more power and dominance, and it obviously isn't going to be the US, so whoever wants to step in, be our collective guest. This time it was the UK, next up is the EU Digital Markets and Digital Services Acts. And yes, there are much mo…
> Because US regulators are too lazy/corrupt/starved to do the job they exist to do.
Personally the fact that the US regulators aren't wasting time monitoring gif repo purchases is a good thing in my book.
> Someone has to reign in oligopolies amassing even more power and dominance
Quite a hyperbole for a gif repo purchase. Can FB purchase Tenor then? Who could purchase Giphy, any other social media giant?
This is all virtue signaling because they know certain people will eat it up.
Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling
#97Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling
#98At first I thought Giphy might have been a UK company, but no. It's an American company founded in New York. Ignoring the merits of the judgement—ridiculous as they are—does no one sense terrible outreach in issuing a ruling on a merger about two companies which are in no way related to the country issuing it? This has terrible repercussions for the American tech economy. Every big tech company would think twice befo…
I take it you've read the judgement in full and are familiar enough with EU competition laws to dismiss the evidentiary basis of the court's findings /s This has no more repercussions for "American tech" than any other US company that has a business and tax presence in the EU. The EU has previously ordered Microsoft to sell Windows without Windows Media Player in EU markets. Yet Facebook still saw fit to open an offi…
Unfortunately, for recent historical reasons this is nothing to do with the EU.
Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Every big tech company would think twice before acquiring another company . Great! As an American, I'm thrilled there are governments in the world that still place people & competition at a higher priority than Mark's wallet. My government has completely given up on the idea of anti-trust enforcement.
Meta is getting creamed by TikTok and the market in general without the need for regulation by European bureaucrats that you haven’t elected democratically. They could just as easy create regulations which are impossible for startups to follow that actually cement big tech into power unintentionally If you want more enforcement, vote in government in your own country. At least we might be able to fix that later.
I feel so much better that China’s state sponsored social media platform is what constitutes “competition”. Clearly no regulation needed here.
Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, the repercussion is that a country other than America is deciding whether or not one American company is allowed to buy another American company. Then replace America which the country name of your choosing.
These companies operate int he UK and in the EU. Naturally, they must follow local laws and abide to local rulings, otherwise they are not allowed to operate. This is nothing new. GDPR is mandatory to all American companies that want to operate in the EU as well. What's the confusion?
GDPR applies to the actions that companies can take in the EU and how they must interact with EU citizens. It does not apply to non-EU citizens.
This is the UK making decision of how Meta must act with respect to non-UK citizens and in areas other than the UK.