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Removing links to other platforms is anti-competitive full stop. Threatening de-verification due to links is even worse. This is the behavior of monopolists. T

Removing links to other platforms is anti-competitive full stop. Threatening de-verification due to links is even worse. This is the behavior of monopolists. The FTC and existing anti-trust organizations would do well to return to their jobs and take a look at these practices broadly across the tech industry.

echelon 7y ago
Absolutely! I'm surprised you're the first one to call this out. In my mind this is how these companies see their platforms plucked from their hands and spun off as independent companies. This is incredibly unfair to users. It's a sign that these platforms have become a mafia protection racket. It's not just as if they're saying "If you consider the competition, you'll lose everything." They're actually doing this. Wow.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  The very first sentence of the OP article calls this out.
  - echelon 7y ago
    I want to see discussion here on HN as this is a special community that has participation from some of the brightest and most influential engineers, lawyers, -- many disciplines and backgrounds -- in the world. This should absolutely be a topic of discussion amongst us. Do we, as individuals with leverage and influence, support these actions? And if not, what can we do to help change the status quo and insure this doesn't happen again so easily? Crafting a response or opinion piece to submit to lawmakers and the FTC could hold a lot of power, especially if it is undersigned by many of us in the field.
hamilyon2 7y ago
Isn't instagram participation voluntary and free of charge? Monopoly over what? Everyone is free to move to another platform or start his own.
- echelon 7y ago
  > participation voluntary and free of charge If you want distribution of your thoughts, you have to use the walled garden controlled by giants. > Everyone is free to move to another platform or start his own. The reality is that you can't. Not without billions of dollars of funding. Social networks should be regulated. They can't own the platform and make moves to crush others by threatening to downgrade your voice and participation.
  - hamilyon2 7y ago
    I distribute my thoughts using email. I have not hit it's scalability limits yet. I cry when I think that in some future I will have to be under some proprietary platform control to distribute my thoughts. > The reality is that you can't. The reality is that is was solved a while ago, the solution is rss and email. Instagram instead offers popularity and nice photo filters and colored ticks on avatars. Which are nothing in common with distributing thoughts.
    - echelon 7y ago
      > The reality is that is was solved a while ago, the solution is rss and email. You are in a very small minority when compared to the average internet user. This is the same attitude that advocates for IRC and Jabber when modern alternatives have taken over due to user friendliness, network power, and corporate ownership/management. It's not to say these platforms don't have problems (they do), or that a non-open model is preferable (it's certainly not ideal). > Instagram instead offers popularity and nice photo filters and colored ticks on avatars. Which are nothing in common with distributing thoughts. We can't ignore that the Internet has moved on from our technical solutions since the rest of the world got online. If we want it to remain open, it's up to us to help reign things back in through legislation when we see such blatantly gross abuses such as this. If you keep pointing to RSS as the solution while simultaneously discounting all of the moves that are being made by the big players, RSS will wither and die and you will be left with nothing. Platform control. Regulatory capture. Impenetrable new "standards". DRM. Dropped support for HTTP, RSS, semantic HTML, ad blocking, video... Just imagine what the Internet will look like in twenty years and tell me that doesn't worry you.
dingo_bat 7y ago
Being a monopolist is not inherently a bad thing. Every company wants a monopoly.
vageli 7y ago
> Removing links to other platforms is anti-competitive full stop. Threatening de-verification due to links is even worse. > This is the behavior of monopolists. The FTC and existing anti-trust organizations would do well to return to their jobs and take a look at these practices broadly across the tech industry. While I am inclined to agree with you, is it anti-competitive to remove phone numbers, etc from apps like Wag or Rover or Airbnb to prevent external communication outside the app? I personally don't like that but don't think it's monopolistic. Wondering if the two are related somehow.
- sailfast 7y ago
  I think there is a distinction to be made between removing a direct contact to a person using your platform, and removing a link to another competing platform to different content. (If you're linking to the same listing on another platform that's probably something a user agreement would have to deal with) For example, if you said "check out our other listing on VRBO" in your AirBnB profile, but they were not the same listing - and AirBnB scrubbed your link, I would argue that would be anti-competitive behavior for a large player in the marketplace to remove the link. Why did they edit your content? Was it Spam? Was it against the rules? The only reason to remove it was to remove the competition from the other platform. I acknowledge that the user acquisition pipeline / discovery chain for sales / rentals is very valuable and these platforms want to maintain the chain so they make their money. That said - you can't have your cake and eat it, and becoming a large player and exhibiting these behaviors has historically been a problem. I also acknowledge that real moderation of these types of links is a problem. The "easy" answer that happens to benefit the company is removal of all of those links, but that reasoning seems flimsy. If you're a major player in a market space with huge network effects and you remove links that your users have posted (in-line with your user agreement on your website), that's anti-competitive behavior that has typically not been looked well upon in the United States.
  - vageli 7y ago
    > If you're a major player in a market space with huge network effects and you remove links that your users have posted (in-line with your user agreement on your website), that's anti-competitive behavior that has typically not been looked well upon in the United States. Are you aware of any case law that reflects that sentiment as it applies to link removal? It sounds like you have a specific case or two in mind.
privateSFacct 7y ago
I think most of the scam / paid date / etc folks ask you to add them on other platforms. I guess this will now be permitted "full stop"?
- sailfast 7y ago
  They hid links, hash tags, and other content referencing SnapChat. I didn't read anything in the article related to reducing scams. I'm also not sure that it would be credible to happen to block Snapchat just for scams. Are they blocking all links, or just to their social media competitors, for example. But this is a good point. Moderation is damned near impossible here, but it's suspicious to apply this to your competitors content including hash tags and verified profiles.

echelon 7y ago

Absolutely! I'm surprised you're the first one to call this out. In my mind this is how these companies see their platforms plucked from their hands and spun off as independent companies. This is incredibly unfair to users. It's a sign that these platforms have become a mafia protection racket. It's not just as if they're saying "If you consider the competition, you'll lose everything." They're actually doing this. Wow.

lonelappde 7y ago
The very first sentence of the OP article calls this out.
- echelon 7y ago
  I want to see discussion here on HN as this is a special community that has participation from some of the brightest and most influential engineers, lawyers, -- many disciplines and backgrounds -- in the world. This should absolutely be a topic of discussion amongst us. Do we, as individuals with leverage and influence, support these actions? And if not, what can we do to help change the status quo and insure this doesn't happen again so easily? Crafting a response or opinion piece to submit to lawmakers and the FTC could hold a lot of power, especially if it is undersigned by many of us in the field.

hamilyon2 7y ago

Isn't instagram participation voluntary and free of charge? Monopoly over what? Everyone is free to move to another platform or start his own.

echelon 7y ago
> participation voluntary and free of charge If you want distribution of your thoughts, you have to use the walled garden controlled by giants. > Everyone is free to move to another platform or start his own. The reality is that you can't. Not without billions of dollars of funding. Social networks should be regulated. They can't own the platform and make moves to crush others by threatening to downgrade your voice and participation.
- hamilyon2 7y ago
  I distribute my thoughts using email. I have not hit it's scalability limits yet. I cry when I think that in some future I will have to be under some proprietary platform control to distribute my thoughts. > The reality is that you can't. The reality is that is was solved a while ago, the solution is rss and email. Instagram instead offers popularity and nice photo filters and colored ticks on avatars. Which are nothing in common with distributing thoughts.
  - echelon 7y ago
    > The reality is that is was solved a while ago, the solution is rss and email. You are in a very small minority when compared to the average internet user. This is the same attitude that advocates for IRC and Jabber when modern alternatives have taken over due to user friendliness, network power, and corporate ownership/management. It's not to say these platforms don't have problems (they do), or that a non-open model is preferable (it's certainly not ideal). > Instagram instead offers popularity and nice photo filters and colored ticks on avatars. Which are nothing in common with distributing thoughts. We can't ignore that the Internet has moved on from our technical solutions since the rest of the world got online. If we want it to remain open, it's up to us to help reign things back in through legislation when we see such blatantly gross abuses such as this. If you keep pointing to RSS as the solution while simultaneously discounting all of the moves that are being made by the big players, RSS will wither and die and you will be left with nothing. Platform control. Regulatory capture. Impenetrable new "standards". DRM. Dropped support for HTTP, RSS, semantic HTML, ad blocking, video... Just imagine what the Internet will look like in twenty years and tell me that doesn't worry you.

dingo_bat 7y ago

Being a monopolist is not inherently a bad thing. Every company wants a monopoly.

vageli 7y ago

> Removing links to other platforms is anti-competitive full stop. Threatening de-verification due to links is even worse. > This is the behavior of monopolists. The FTC and existing anti-trust organizations would do well to return to their jobs and take a look at these practices broadly across the tech industry. While I am inclined to agree with you, is it anti-competitive to remove phone numbers, etc from apps like Wag or Rover or Airbnb to prevent external communication outside the app? I personally don't like that but don't think it's monopolistic. Wondering if the two are related somehow.

sailfast 7y ago
I think there is a distinction to be made between removing a direct contact to a person using your platform, and removing a link to another competing platform to different content. (If you're linking to the same listing on another platform that's probably something a user agreement would have to deal with) For example, if you said "check out our other listing on VRBO" in your AirBnB profile, but they were not the same listing - and AirBnB scrubbed your link, I would argue that would be anti-competitive behavior for a large player in the marketplace to remove the link. Why did they edit your content? Was it Spam? Was it against the rules? The only reason to remove it was to remove the competition from the other platform. I acknowledge that the user acquisition pipeline / discovery chain for sales / rentals is very valuable and these platforms want to maintain the chain so they make their money. That said - you can't have your cake and eat it, and becoming a large player and exhibiting these behaviors has historically been a problem. I also acknowledge that real moderation of these types of links is a problem. The "easy" answer that happens to benefit the company is removal of all of those links, but that reasoning seems flimsy. If you're a major player in a market space with huge network effects and you remove links that your users have posted (in-line with your user agreement on your website), that's anti-competitive behavior that has typically not been looked well upon in the United States.
- vageli 7y ago
  > If you're a major player in a market space with huge network effects and you remove links that your users have posted (in-line with your user agreement on your website), that's anti-competitive behavior that has typically not been looked well upon in the United States. Are you aware of any case law that reflects that sentiment as it applies to link removal? It sounds like you have a specific case or two in mind.

privateSFacct 7y ago

I think most of the scam / paid date / etc folks ask you to add them on other platforms. I guess this will now be permitted "full stop"?

sailfast 7y ago
They hid links, hash tags, and other content referencing SnapChat. I didn't read anything in the article related to reducing scams. I'm also not sure that it would be credible to happen to block Snapchat just for scams. Are they blocking all links, or just to their social media competitors, for example. But this is a good point. Moderation is damned near impossible here, but it's suspicious to apply this to your competitors content including hash tags and verified profiles.