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> Facebook needs to be regulated more tightly, or broken up so that no single entity controls all of its data. What would a break-up of Facebook look like? Th

> Facebook needs to be regulated more tightly, or broken up so that no single entity controls all of its data. What would a break-up of Facebook look like? The most famous modern example is the breakup of Bell, but the infrastructure lent itself to a natural geographical split. It's not entirely obvious if a geographic split would work for FB, and it's not entirely obvious along what planes one could split up the company.

krrishd 9y ago
Not necessarily related to the problems discussed by the article, but I could definitely see a logical split in terms of the non-Facebook.com platforms that Facebook has acquired (Instagram, Whatsapp, etc). Facebook being able to eat up any and every new form of social media is worrisome in its own right. This recent article in particular discusses some pretty solid points: https://stratechery.com/2017/why-facebook-shouldnt-be-allowed-to-buy-tbh/ https://stratechery.com/2017/why-facebook-shouldnt-be-allowe...
- GCA10 9y ago
  During the U.S. government's long antitrust investigation of IBM (1969-1982) the company basically stopped making any acquisitions -- because it felt those were sure to be vetoed and to reinforce trust-busters' belief that something bad was afoot. A long-running antitrust probe of FB or other tech giants might have a similar chilling effect on growth plans, even if the case itself doesn't result in big changes.
volgo 9y ago
The most relevant example would be the break up of NBC / ABC [1] in the early days of broadcasting. They were simply split into two companies that do exactly the same thing, but were now natural competitors We could do the same with Facebook. Force them to segregate out different demographics (maybe by continent) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBC_Red_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBC_Red_Network
- jabretti 9y ago
  So I could no longer be Facebook friends with my friends on different continents?
  - ericflo 9y ago
    No, they would be forced to allow friendships to span company-wall boundaries.
    - jabretti 9y ago
      So we split Facebook into multiple companies which must of necessity coordinate all their activities with each other?
      - ericflo 9y ago
        Are e-mail providers "multiple companies which must of necessity coordinate all their activities with each other"? Sure, but when you put it that way it sounds nefarious. The underlying idea here, if I understand it correctly, is to force Facebook into defining protocols for what they do - something closer to e-mail than the current Facebook model.
        uoaei 9y ago
        Sounds like a little creative reimagining of PubSub (hell, even RSS) would make this more than possible.
      - CaptainZapp 9y ago
        Works pretty well for the global phone system, doesn't it?
jerf 9y ago
One option would be to Just Do It, just break the company up along that sort of arbitrary line, and expect that that will push the Baby Faces [1] to be forced to communicate with federation protocols, which could also let others in to play too. One would imagine a condition of the breakup would be that any such federation protocol that was developed could not privilege the Baby Faces amoungst each other. It isn't necessarily the best choice, but it is one choice. I'm not sure there's necessarily a much better one, either. It's a very big problem to try to wrap your head around. [1]: I think you heard it here first, though I can't promise nobody else has come up with that. I haven't heard it before to my knowledge.
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  I think this is definitely a very interesting line of discussion for this problem. I really like the idea of essentially forcing federation protocols to be developed. E-mail was an overwhelming success -- we should look for ways to repeat that success with other aspects.
  - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
    What about developing federated protocols by 'just doing it'.
    - s286912 9y ago
      How about creating a open standard for social media,i.e, open API so that no matter what platform you use, you can connect to ppl on other platforms. This should introduce more competition in the market without creating a loophole to regulate internet. so ppl would be able to choose platform based on variety of variables like advertisements, data collection, looks, usability.... just an idea
      - fabianhjr 9y ago
        OStatus[1] and ActivityPub[2][3] already exist. [1]: https://www.w3.org/community/ostatus/wiki/images/9/93/OStatus_1.0_Draft_2.pdf https://www.w3.org/community/ostatus/wiki/images/9/93/OStatu... [2]: https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ [3]: http://activitypub.rocks/ http://activitypub.rocks/
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
thrden 9y ago
I could imagine a four way split as follows: Instagram Whatsapp Facebook the site, which is required to sell its user data to third parties (think large ad services) Facebook the advertising service, which buys userdata & advertising space from Facebook the site and sells it to third parties. The final two separations are not particularly likely in my opinion.
AVTizzle 9y ago
Been thinking about this very question since having this conversation with a friend last week. How about making Facebook give all its data back to users? All the data, photos, metadata, social graph - all of it. Open source the social graph and give the users their data... would that make sense? Or just create a security nightmare?
- bskap 9y ago
  You mean this data? https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467 https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467
forapurpose 9y ago
> What would a break-up of Facebook look like? An interesting question. The network effect - the requirement that users can interact with each other - obviously complicates it. Here are a few ideas, which could also be combined in some ways: A. Eliminate the vertical integration: Infrastructure, UI, advertising, etc. I'm not sure that resolution, by itself, would sufficiently address the problems mentioned in the article. B. Break it up horizontally, whether geographically or some other arbitrary way, and require they all follow open standards that allow interoperability. If you think of it, that's no different than the Bell breakup - they remained interoperable; people using one post-AT&T company could call someone on another. C. Both A & B: Different companies could create different UIs, as one example, competing to provide different kinds of user experiences to different markets - one-size-fits-all probably isn't the best solution anyway, especially for an industry selling to every subculture on the globe. The same could apply to other layers, such as advertising: B2B analytics companies would compete to sell differentiated services to advertisers. (It would be essential, IMHO, that the new social network system provide users with opt-out, complete privacy - maybe they could sell their personal info to competing buyers of it.) The more I think about it, the better it sounds. From this perspective Facebook seems like an awkward monopoly - trying to be all things, on so many layers, to all people and businesses, profiting from monopolistic control, and preventing what seems like (at first impression) the vast innovations that competition would bring if it was opened up. My realization is this: There's no reason one company must run the entire social network for users to benefit from network effects. Plenty of systems provide network effect benefits without central control - the entire Internet and its protocol stacks, the web, email ...
alphaalpha101 9y ago
>Bell Surely this turned one big monopoly into a bunch of regional monopolies.
solatic 9y ago
> What would a break-up of Facebook look like? 1) Publish open APIs that enable federation between Facebook-like services 2) Split Facebook.com into three companies - Facebook the infrastructure company, Facebook the we-sell-advertisements-to-our-users-plus-sell-unprocessed-user-data company, and Facebook the we-process-user-data-to-sell-insights-useful-for-advertising company. Establish legal walls between these companies to ensure that they only communicate with each other through their APIs. 3) Enforce federation by splitting the middle "we actually host users and their walls and their data" company along state lines and international borders, so that they are more beholden to local authorities and jurisdictions.
- hishnash 9y ago
  > Enforce federation by splitting the middle "we actually host users and their walls and their data" company along state lines and international borders, so that they are more beholden to local authorities and jurisdictions. this would push up the costs massively. Every single state int he US requiring its own data centre. And what do you do if I have a friend in another state and share a post with them? who has the legal power to block that post?
  - solatic 9y ago
    I didn't call for the infrastructure company to be split up along state lines, just the company doing the equivalent of being the Mastodon admins for a given state's instance. So, at least in the beginning, no new data centers need to be constructed. Because the API is publicly published, new companies may spring up to sell their own implementations of the FacebookInfrastructure API, and existing infrastructure businesses (AWS, GCE, OpenShift, etc.) may decide to write their own implementations as well, which provides more competition. Both states have the power the block - the state hosting the post may block the post from being posted on it's instance, and the state accessing the post may block the post from being seen. Again, because the API is publicly available, oppressive outcomes will probably result in competing solutions implementing the federated API and adopting more liberal administration.

krrishd 9y ago

Not necessarily related to the problems discussed by the article, but I could definitely see a logical split in terms of the non-Facebook.com platforms that Facebook has acquired (Instagram, Whatsapp, etc). Facebook being able to eat up any and every new form of social media is worrisome in its own right. This recent article in particular discusses some pretty solid points: https://stratechery.com/2017/why-facebook-shouldnt-be-allowed-to-buy-tbh/ https://stratechery.com/2017/why-facebook-shouldnt-be-allowe...

GCA10 9y ago
During the U.S. government's long antitrust investigation of IBM (1969-1982) the company basically stopped making any acquisitions -- because it felt those were sure to be vetoed and to reinforce trust-busters' belief that something bad was afoot. A long-running antitrust probe of FB or other tech giants might have a similar chilling effect on growth plans, even if the case itself doesn't result in big changes.

volgo 9y ago

The most relevant example would be the break up of NBC / ABC [1] in the early days of broadcasting. They were simply split into two companies that do exactly the same thing, but were now natural competitors We could do the same with Facebook. Force them to segregate out different demographics (maybe by continent) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBC_Red_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBC_Red_Network

jabretti 9y ago
So I could no longer be Facebook friends with my friends on different continents?
- ericflo 9y ago
  No, they would be forced to allow friendships to span company-wall boundaries.
  - jabretti 9y ago
    So we split Facebook into multiple companies which must of necessity coordinate all their activities with each other?
    - ericflo 9y ago
      Are e-mail providers "multiple companies which must of necessity coordinate all their activities with each other"? Sure, but when you put it that way it sounds nefarious. The underlying idea here, if I understand it correctly, is to force Facebook into defining protocols for what they do - something closer to e-mail than the current Facebook model.
      - uoaei 9y ago
        Sounds like a little creative reimagining of PubSub (hell, even RSS) would make this more than possible.
    - CaptainZapp 9y ago
      Works pretty well for the global phone system, doesn't it?

jerf 9y ago

One option would be to Just Do It, just break the company up along that sort of arbitrary line, and expect that that will push the Baby Faces [1] to be forced to communicate with federation protocols, which could also let others in to play too. One would imagine a condition of the breakup would be that any such federation protocol that was developed could not privilege the Baby Faces amoungst each other. It isn't necessarily the best choice, but it is one choice. I'm not sure there's necessarily a much better one, either. It's a very big problem to try to wrap your head around. [1]: I think you heard it here first, though I can't promise nobody else has come up with that. I haven't heard it before to my knowledge.

dwaltrip 9y ago
I think this is definitely a very interesting line of discussion for this problem. I really like the idea of essentially forcing federation protocols to be developed. E-mail was an overwhelming success -- we should look for ways to repeat that success with other aspects.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  What about developing federated protocols by 'just doing it'.
  - s286912 9y ago
    How about creating a open standard for social media,i.e, open API so that no matter what platform you use, you can connect to ppl on other platforms. This should introduce more competition in the market without creating a loophole to regulate internet. so ppl would be able to choose platform based on variety of variables like advertisements, data collection, looks, usability.... just an idea
    - fabianhjr 9y ago
      OStatus[1] and ActivityPub[2][3] already exist. [1]: https://www.w3.org/community/ostatus/wiki/images/9/93/OStatus_1.0_Draft_2.pdf https://www.w3.org/community/ostatus/wiki/images/9/93/OStatu... [2]: https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ [3]: http://activitypub.rocks/ http://activitypub.rocks/

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

thrden 9y ago

I could imagine a four way split as follows: Instagram Whatsapp Facebook the site, which is required to sell its user data to third parties (think large ad services) Facebook the advertising service, which buys userdata & advertising space from Facebook the site and sells it to third parties. The final two separations are not particularly likely in my opinion.

AVTizzle 9y ago

Been thinking about this very question since having this conversation with a friend last week. How about making Facebook give all its data back to users? All the data, photos, metadata, social graph - all of it. Open source the social graph and give the users their data... would that make sense? Or just create a security nightmare?

bskap 9y ago
You mean this data? https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467 https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467

forapurpose 9y ago

> What would a break-up of Facebook look like? An interesting question. The network effect - the requirement that users can interact with each other - obviously complicates it. Here are a few ideas, which could also be combined in some ways: A. Eliminate the vertical integration: Infrastructure, UI, advertising, etc. I'm not sure that resolution, by itself, would sufficiently address the problems mentioned in the article. B. Break it up horizontally, whether geographically or some other arbitrary way, and require they all follow open standards that allow interoperability. If you think of it, that's no different than the Bell breakup - they remained interoperable; people using one post-AT&T company could call someone on another. C. Both A & B: Different companies could create different UIs, as one example, competing to provide different kinds of user experiences to different markets - one-size-fits-all probably isn't the best solution anyway, especially for an industry selling to every subculture on the globe. The same could apply to other layers, such as advertising: B2B analytics companies would compete to sell differentiated services to advertisers. (It would be essential, IMHO, that the new social network system provide users with opt-out, complete privacy - maybe they could sell their personal info to competing buyers of it.) The more I think about it, the better it sounds. From this perspective Facebook seems like an awkward monopoly - trying to be all things, on so many layers, to all people and businesses, profiting from monopolistic control, and preventing what seems like (at first impression) the vast innovations that competition would bring if it was opened up. My realization is this: There's no reason one company must run the entire social network for users to benefit from network effects. Plenty of systems provide network effect benefits without central control - the entire Internet and its protocol stacks, the web, email ...

alphaalpha101 9y ago

>Bell Surely this turned one big monopoly into a bunch of regional monopolies.

solatic 9y ago

> What would a break-up of Facebook look like? 1) Publish open APIs that enable federation between Facebook-like services 2) Split Facebook.com into three companies - Facebook the infrastructure company, Facebook the we-sell-advertisements-to-our-users-plus-sell-unprocessed-user-data company, and Facebook the we-process-user-data-to-sell-insights-useful-for-advertising company. Establish legal walls between these companies to ensure that they only communicate with each other through their APIs. 3) Enforce federation by splitting the middle "we actually host users and their walls and their data" company along state lines and international borders, so that they are more beholden to local authorities and jurisdictions.

hishnash 9y ago
> Enforce federation by splitting the middle "we actually host users and their walls and their data" company along state lines and international borders, so that they are more beholden to local authorities and jurisdictions. this would push up the costs massively. Every single state int he US requiring its own data centre. And what do you do if I have a friend in another state and share a post with them? who has the legal power to block that post?
- solatic 9y ago
  I didn't call for the infrastructure company to be split up along state lines, just the company doing the equivalent of being the Mastodon admins for a given state's instance. So, at least in the beginning, no new data centers need to be constructed. Because the API is publicly published, new companies may spring up to sell their own implementations of the FacebookInfrastructure API, and existing infrastructure businesses (AWS, GCE, OpenShift, etc.) may decide to write their own implementations as well, which provides more competition. Both states have the power the block - the state hosting the post may block the post from being posted on it's instance, and the state accessing the post may block the post from being seen. Again, because the API is publicly available, oppressive outcomes will probably result in competing solutions implementing the federated API and adopting more liberal administration.