4 ms·

When Microsoft was monopolizing the world, the government stepped in. Now the EU is going after Google. What is the government doing about Facebook? Imagine if

When Microsoft was monopolizing the world, the government stepped in. Now the EU is going after Google. What is the government doing about Facebook? Imagine if the government hadn't stepped in to limit Microsoft's monopoly; today there would be no Facebook; everyone in the tech industry would be a Microsoft employee and everyone in the world would be using Microsoft's "Human Social Monitoring System"... and we would chant praises to our dear leader Bill Gates.

imgabe 9y ago
Microsoft abused its position as the dominant OS maker to shut competitors out of a different market (web browsers). I agree the pervasiveness of Facebook is a problem (one of many). But from a legal standpoint, what have they done that can bring a viable antitrust complaint?
- jondubois 9y ago
  Facebook monopolized social advertising. Facebook makes your friends want things that they don't need and in doing so is distorting society's values and encouraging mindless consumerism.
  - omg_ketchup 9y ago
    That's not a monopoly, that's just advertising.
  - fitchjo 9y ago
    So you want to make all advertising illegal?
    - syshum 9y ago
      A world free of ads.... what a wonderful dream A better dream is a world free of marketing of any type
booleandilemma 9y ago
Maybe the government is comfortable with a company that benignly collects personal data on 1/4 of the population, just in case it ever wants to leverage that data.
ufmace 9y ago
> Imagine if the government hadn't stepped in to limit Microsoft's monopoly That seems like a stretch. Microsoft has drastically decreased in influence because they didn't get in on the big new trends soon enough - web search, social networking, and mobile. I don't see how anything the Government did enabled that. At most, the implied threat of further Government action might have prevented them from more drastic efforts to block those things.
- dodongomang 9y ago
  That the USA limited Microsoft is not a stretch at all, it happened! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C....
matt4077 9y ago
There are some attempts in the EU. In Germany, they've been waging a PR battle with the government over fake news, nazi propaganda, and other extremism. It's difficult because it's not something that neatly falls into established categories, and it quite obviously touches on free speech issues. You can be absolutely sure that, if Facebook were to use its power to promote a political agenda, they'd quickly find themselves on the wrong end of a law. But as long as it's incidental damage, and hard to show with statistical significance, it comes down to the fundamental law of laws: that what doesn't do harm is allowed. What I suspect will emerge rather soon is a DMCA-style notice/takedown/counter-notice protocol for libel and fake news.

imgabe 9y ago

Microsoft abused its position as the dominant OS maker to shut competitors out of a different market (web browsers). I agree the pervasiveness of Facebook is a problem (one of many). But from a legal standpoint, what have they done that can bring a viable antitrust complaint?

jondubois 9y ago
Facebook monopolized social advertising. Facebook makes your friends want things that they don't need and in doing so is distorting society's values and encouraging mindless consumerism.
- omg_ketchup 9y ago
  That's not a monopoly, that's just advertising.
- fitchjo 9y ago
  So you want to make all advertising illegal?
  - syshum 9y ago
    A world free of ads.... what a wonderful dream A better dream is a world free of marketing of any type

booleandilemma 9y ago

Maybe the government is comfortable with a company that benignly collects personal data on 1/4 of the population, just in case it ever wants to leverage that data.

ufmace 9y ago

> Imagine if the government hadn't stepped in to limit Microsoft's monopoly That seems like a stretch. Microsoft has drastically decreased in influence because they didn't get in on the big new trends soon enough - web search, social networking, and mobile. I don't see how anything the Government did enabled that. At most, the implied threat of further Government action might have prevented them from more drastic efforts to block those things.

dodongomang 9y ago
That the USA limited Microsoft is not a stretch at all, it happened! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C....

matt4077 9y ago

There are some attempts in the EU. In Germany, they've been waging a PR battle with the government over fake news, nazi propaganda, and other extremism. It's difficult because it's not something that neatly falls into established categories, and it quite obviously touches on free speech issues. You can be absolutely sure that, if Facebook were to use its power to promote a political agenda, they'd quickly find themselves on the wrong end of a law. But as long as it's incidental damage, and hard to show with statistical significance, it comes down to the fundamental law of laws: that what doesn't do harm is allowed. What I suspect will emerge rather soon is a DMCA-style notice/takedown/counter-notice protocol for libel and fake news.