Only if its utility is making loads of money for the owner(s). If it is broken up, and the interface between the different bits are implemented as common well documented interfaces (like how most of the internet, or even IT in general works) then the utility to the user can remain the same, and others can compete in a meaningful way with each component.
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Lexicus
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Maybe I don't understand what you mean by "different bits." Do you mean each of Messenger, News Feed, etc should be managed by different companies? That makes more sense to me.
The idea of a competitive market in social media apps doesn't really click with me though. Social media's utility is maximized when everyone is in the same social media network.
That is what I assumed was meant by breaking up, rather than having a UK facebook, a US facebook etc.
I agree that everyone should be on the same network, in the same way that everyone is on the same internet. There is no reason that everyone needs to get on the network, or have there data held by the same company to do that. Pretty much that is the reason the internet is good, we can use shared protocols to extract data from multiple sources and merge then on our device.
The same was said when they broke up ATT into seven regional phone companies. And it is likely that the same argument was around when they broke up Standard Oil. The separation could be built around any number of different criteria and even driven by user preference. Maybe even random assignments with an ability to change your result within 60 days or something.
Timsup2nothin
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The "break up" of the phone company is generally a terrible example. "We can't have this huge nationwide phone company with monopoly power over their customers, so let's break it up into seven regional companies that will each have monopoly power over their respective customers. That will make things so much better!" What was the expected outcome there? Hoards of people saying "I don't like my phone service! That's it! Fed up! Moving to another region!"
Zardnaar
Deity
Some new law instead of breaking it up making it a non profit public utility.
Lexicus
Deity
I was gonna say what Tim said, but the problem is that we don't have robust anti-trust enforcement so breaking up the companies even if done "properly" is not a lasting solution.
Yes, trying to break up social networks is not going to work.
Instead, they should be regulated to have interfaces to connect to any other social network. So you could be using a different service than your friend but still message each other. You wouldn't be locked in to the social network all your friends are using. This could enable some actual competition, multiple service providers and a social network that is not in the hands of one company.
Instead, they should be regulated to have interfaces to connect to any other social network. So you could be using a different service than your friend but still message each other. You wouldn't be locked in to the social network all your friends are using. This could enable some actual competition, multiple service providers and a social network that is not in the hands of one company.
Truthy
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That seems to be shoehorning social media into the telecom analogy by assuming social media’s network effects are just about everyone reaching each other somehow. But that’s not the case. Facebook’s utility as a stalking machine increases as more people use it as a stalking machine. So if the goal is really to decouple network effects from firms, it seems the “interfaces” would expose essentially all content within each social network to all the other social networks. Which sounds pretty strange and unworkable.
The reason to break it up is to reduce it power in the marketplace, disperse the data, allow diversity of offerings and choice among users. Such a move also acts a counter to the big tech tendency to buy up all their competition.
adcarrymaokai
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Zuckerberg is an ass; a very rich one, but still an ass.
Bugfatty300
Buddha Squirrel
I don't get the whole "I am friends with hucksters, liars, bigots and war criminals. Wow, aren't I such an enlightened tolerant gentleman of pure pragmatic logic and reason" line of reasoning that's going around. It's almost like some sort of persecution by proxy complex.
His answers to AOC's questions the other day were quite hilarious.
Estebonrober
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After we’d shot the movie, we arranged a private screening of an early cut for your chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg. Ms. Sandberg stood up in the middle of the screening, turned to the producers who were standing in the back of the room, and said, “How can you do this to a kid?” (You were 26 years old at the time, but all right, I get it.)
I hope your C.O.O. walks into your office, leans in (as she suggested we do in her best selling book), and says, “How can we do this to tens of millions of kids? Are we really going to run an ad that claims Kamala Harris ran dog fights out of the basement of a pizza place while Elizabeth Warren destroyed evidence that climate change is a hoax and the deep state sold meth to Rashida Tlaib and Colin Kaepernick?”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/opinion/aaron-sorkin-mark-zuckerberg-facebook.html
This guy. . .
I hope your C.O.O. walks into your office, leans in (as she suggested we do in her best selling book), and says, “How can we do this to tens of millions of kids? Are we really going to run an ad that claims Kamala Harris ran dog fights out of the basement of a pizza place while Elizabeth Warren destroyed evidence that climate change is a hoax and the deep state sold meth to Rashida Tlaib and Colin Kaepernick?”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/opinion/aaron-sorkin-mark-zuckerberg-facebook.html
This guy. . .
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