Discussion

• @fbnewsroom @fbnewsroom on x

  We're reviewing the complaints & will have more to say soon. Years after the FTC cleared our acquisitions, the government now wants a do-over with no regard for the impact that precedent would have on the broader business community or the people who choose our products every day.

• @linamkhan Lina Khan on x

  1. Solid complaints from FTC & 48 AGs suing Facebook for violating antitrust laws — and requesting divestitures/breakups, among other forms of relief. Hopeful that it marks yet another step forward in the growing efforts to rehabilitate antitrust laws & recover antimonopoly.

• @sarahfrier Sarah Frier on x

  Wowww the FTC calls for the Facebook and Instagram acquisitions to be unwound. https://twitter.com/...

• @caseynewton Casey Newton on x

  If you are the Facebook software engineer who sent this internal email in 2013, I like your style and would love to Zoom with you https://twitter.com/...

• @newyorkstateag Ny Ag on x

  BREAKING: I'm leading a bipartisan coalition of 48 attorneys general in a lawsuit against @Facebook to end its illegal monopoly. We are taking action to stand up for the millions of consumers and many small businesses that have been harmed by Facebook's illegal behavior.

• @peoplesparty_us @peoplesparty_us on x

  This is huge!! Have you been harmed by Facebook's illegal behavior? Let the world know! https://twitter.com/...

• @aral @aral on x

  Replace “Facebook” with surveillance capitalism, and its spot on. (Hint: it's not just Facebook, it's all of Big Tech.) https://twitter.com/...

• @marshablackburn Sen. Marsha Blackburn on x

  After a decade of moving fast and breaking rules, Facebook must face consequences. The company's abusive practices harm competitors and consumers, trampling on privacy protections for far too long. https://www.wsj.com/...

• @berniesanders Bernie Sanders on x

  I applaud this effort to end Facebook's monopoly. Their greed knows no bounds, and they've used their power to try and control too much of political and economic life all over the world. The only thing that will stop Facebook is to say “enough is enough” and break it up. https://…

• @mikeisaac Rat King on x

  Comment from Facebook GC Jennifer Newstead: “This is revisionist history. Antitrust laws exist to protect consumers and promote innovation, not to punish successful businesses.” https://twitter.com/...

• @senwarren Elizabeth Warren on x

  The FTC and 48 states now recognize what I've been arguing for a long time: Facebook's power snuffs out competition and the Instagram and WhatsApp purchases should be unwound. There's more work to do, but this is a big step in the fight to #BreakUpBigTech. https://www.cnbc.com/..…

• @sal19 @sal19 on x

  I would love to know who this mystery company that Facebook has tried to buy numerous times over the years, according to the FTC's lawsuit, might be https://twitter.com/...

• @alecstapp Alec Stapp on x

  Apr 2012: “Instagram has no business model at all. This is when all the tech bubble speak starts to sound reminiscent of the dot-com era, during which companies were wildly overvalued both on the stock market and among other companies, which overpaid for now-defunct companies” ht…

• @doctorow @doctorow on x

  Of course, they WERE anticompetitive. We know, because Zuck - who specializes in tripping over his own dick - sent out memos extolling the acquisitions' anticompetitive advantages, proving he hasn't learned a thing since he traded incriminating IMs about founding FB. 19/ https://…

• @mattyglesias Matthew Yglesias on x

  Easy to forget that at the time the conventional wisdom was that Facebook was massively overpaying for Instagram in a clear sign of a tech bubble. I happen to remember because this is basically the only thing I've ever been right about. https://twitter.com/...

• @newyorkstateag Ny Ag on x

  For years, @Facebook has been illegally crushing competition and building a powerful monopoly. No company should have this much unchecked power, period. https://twitter.com/...

• @sarthakgh Sar Haribhakti on x

  Saying Instagram and Whatsapp were inevitable success stories is intellectually bankrupt at best or intentionally manipulative at worst https://twitter.com/...

• @mmasnick Mike Masnick on x

  It's funny how quickly people forget what the situation was like when Facebook actually bought Instagram https://twitter.com/...

• @ashleyrcarman Ashley Carman on x

  i make the case for instagram to be set free. let it loose from the branding nightmare that is facebook. zuck must def knows insta would thrive on its own and fb would wither without it, which i agree! https://www.theverge.com/...

• @drewharwell Drew Harwell on x

  Zuck understood something the rest of the world didn't: The power of a “social graph” that could shape behavior and neutralize competition. @ashk4n: “But it's not the innovation he's getting dinged for. It's that he was kind of an asshole in the way he wielded that knowledge”

• @moonalice Roger McNamee on x

  If you feel sympathy for FB about the antitrust case, read this ... then ask yourself if a functioning democracy — the US in 1966, for example — would allow this company to exist in its current form. https://twitter.com/...

• @superwuster Tim Wu on x

  Very proud of the Facebook antitrust complaint drafted by my former colleagues at the New York State @NewYorkStateAG — it obviously took extraordinary amounts of work. Who said the States don't matter? Have a read: https://ag.ny.gov/...

• @dhh @dhh on x

  While focus is on Facebook, the ultimate remedy is to destroy the value of their monopolized access to user data: OUTLAW ADVERTISING TARGETED WITH PERSONAL DATA. It's this regime of advertising that has enabled the Facebook/Google duopoly on online ads to destroy everyone else.

• @dhh @dhh on x

  Facebook and Google has destroyed the value in building a audience around high quality content, localized reach, or any specific niches, because their data troves have rendered even the worst content as good as the best, as long as the eyeball clock is ticking.

• @drewharwell Drew Harwell on x

  New: The government's antitrust case against Facebook seeks a villain in Mark Zuckerberg. Enforcers are casting the billionaire executive, once one of tech's most “darling superstars,” as a sneaky and rapacious brawler who vowed to crush the competition https://www.washingtonpost…

• @scobleizer Robert Scoble on x

  If Facebook is forced to divest Oculus, then Oculus won't survive. Apple is about to come and to compete you need advertising-focused subsidies. So, watch what you wish for. You might hand the entire world to Apple.

• @hay Mike Hay on x

  This is one that I could support. Requiring a COMPANY login for unrelated products is foul, especially when that opts you in to a tracking network. https://twitter.com/...

• @arobertlong Robert Long on x

  This week keeps getting better! Alright FTC, do Oculus next. https://twitter.com/...

• @brianpeiris Brian Peiris on x

  #SweeneyWasRight Glad to see savvy countries like Germany act against the Oculus Quest 2 account requirement, and the States wake up with their calls to break Facebook up. @TimSweeneyEpic was absolutely right to warn us in 2016. https://twitter.com/...

• @davidgerard David Gerard on x

  If Facebook's Diem (nee Libra) ever launches, Facebook will almost certainly want to tie Novi wallet access to your Facebook account. They already tried this with Oculus. https://techcrunch.com/...

• @shanselman Scott Hanselman on x

  And Oculus, please https://twitter.com/...

• @kurtopsahl Kurt Opsahl on x

  At the time of the acquisition Oculus offered distressed users an assurance that “[y]ou will not need a Facebook account to use or develop for the Rift [headset].” https://www.eff.org/... https://twitter.com/...

• @jessedamiani Jesse Damiani on x

  I'm curious to see if this probe (in Germany) will have any impact on the US antitrust suit filed yesterday regarding WhatsApp and Instagram. https://twitter.com/...

• @jrmoorman OutlawLaserRoboGeek on x

  I'm imagining someone at the FTC has to set up an oculus for their kid and they snapped. https://twitter.com/...

• @montezumachavez Luis Alberto Montezuma on x

  Today, the Bundeskartellamt has initiated abuse proceedings against Facebook to examine the linkage between Oculus virtual reality products and the social network and Facebook platform. Here's the press release: https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/ ... Credits: @1Br0wn

• @dhh @dhh on x

  This is how Facebook in particular has turned the sludge of highly-engaging swamps of conspiracy theories and tribal hate farms into gold mines. Whatever it takes to keep those eyeballs glued. Then the targeting machine mints the cash. It's truly diabolical regime.

• @mattnavarra Matt Navarra on x

  Facebook's bad week just got worse... https://techcrunch.com/...

• @superwuster Tim Wu on x

  A major mistake that the press is making about Facebook: The FTC @FTC never “approved” the mergers of Instagram / WhatsApp. It declined to bring an enforcement action at the time. As in any law enforcement, that is irrelevant to future prosecution (See, eg, Jeffrey Epstein)

• @ceciliakang Cecilia Kang on x

  👀👀👀👀 Mark Zuckerberg's letter to employees: “Today's news is one step in a process which could take years to play out in its entirety. In the meantime, you shouldn't be communicating about these cases or related issues except with our legal team.”

• @sandeepvaheesan Sandeep Vaheesan on x

  In @WIRED, I argue the Biden administration should do more than just litigate the antitrust suits against Facebook and Google. To tame corporate dominance, the FTC should enact bright-line rules to restrict mergers and outlaw unfair competitive practices https://www.wired.com/...

• @shawndubravac Shawn DuBravac, PhD on x

  Antitrust enforcement is easiest when activities are illegal per se. You don't have to prove economic harm in these instances. It becomes much more difficult to prove consumers are somehow worse off because IG is owned by FB instead of other alternatives https://www.nytimes.com/.…

• @yaeloss @yaeloss on x

  My initial thought is “well because it's bogus” but I'm looking for a more reasoned analysis here https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @davemcclure Dave McClure on x

  i believe what @FredWilson is suggesting here is that FTC require open API access rather than breakups — pretty interesting idea, altho not sure the FTC knows what that really means. still seems tough to be implement but i like the angle. https://twitter.com/...

• @superwuster Tim Wu on x

  The Facebook funded paper that is the source of all of this, published in a privately funded-journal, is here https://www.criterioninnovation.com/ ...

• @superwuster Tim Wu on x

  The @nytimes made a major mistake in its Facebook reporting today — asserting as established fact a legal standard that is controversial, unsupported, and comes from a Facebook-funded paper published in a privately funded journal https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @laurengoode Lauren Masks Are Goode on x

  “How do you prove people are being harmed by a product that's offered for free? Judging by the complaint filed by the states, which is more thorough than the FTC's, the answer will hinge on privacy.” https://www.wired.com/... via @GiladEdelman

• @dhh @dhh on x

  Key analysis of the lawsuit to breakup Facebook. The filers did their homework, prepared a strong case, and with all the political winds in their sails, might very well prevail. Truly an exciting time for countering Big Tech monopolies. Cheers to the decade of reckoning! 👏 https:…

• @courtneyr Dr. Courtney Radsch on x

  What odd framing “lawmakers & consumer advocates did not address a hard-to-deny factor: The cases against Facebook are far from a slam dunk”. So don't bother with hard cases? Good analysis otherwise. Suit could also ⬆️ transparency @MikeIsaac @ceciliakang https://www.nytimes.com/…

• @timinhonolulu Tim Hogan on x

  IMO way to stop this level of predatory behavior is to charge management & have them face 10 years in prison. Do that to @Zuck et al and everyone will get in line. @Facebook @FBIWFO 'It's Hard to Prove': Why Antitrust Suits Against Facebook Face Hurdles https://www.nytimes.com/..…

• @sarahfrier Sarah Frier on x

  The longer this legal battle draws on, the more integrated Facebook will become with Instagram and WhatsApp, and the harder it will be to break them up. I explain: https://www.bloomberg.com/...

• @tiffanydcross @tiffanydcross on x

  “prosecutors must show that Facebook bought rivals like Instagram & WhatsApp with the express purpose of killing off the competition. Then they must argue a theoretical: Consumers and the social media market would have been better off without the mergers.” https://www.nytimes.com…

• @ingrahamangle Laura Ingraham on x

  Facebook is getting protection from its fellow media outlets... Another sign that it should lose sec. 230 protection. “'It's Hard to Prove': Why Antitrust Suits Against Facebook Face Hurdles” https://www.nytimes.com/...