Posted on 05/10/2019 5:10:57 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
*snip*
Mark’s influence is staggering, far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government. He controls three core communications platforms — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — that billions of people use every day. Facebook’s board works more like an advisory committee than an overseer, because Mark controls around 60 percent of voting shares. Mark alone can decide how to configure Facebook’s algorithms to determine what people see in their News Feeds, what privacy settings they can use and even which messages get delivered. He sets the rules for how to distinguish violent and incendiary speech from the merely offensive, and he can choose to shut down a competitor by acquiring, blocking or copying it.
Mark’s influence is staggering, far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government.
*snip*
First, Facebook should be separated into multiple companies. The F.T.C., in conjunction with the Justice Department, should enforce antitrust laws by undoing the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions and banning future acquisitions for several years. The F.T.C. should have blocked these mergers, but it’s not too late to act. There is precedent for correcting bad decisions — as recently as 2009, Whole Foods settled antitrust complaints by selling off the Wild Oats brand and stores that it had bought a few years earlier.
*snip*
How would a breakup work? Facebook would have a brief period to spin off the Instagram and WhatsApp businesses, and the three would become distinct companies, most likely publicly traded. Facebook shareholders would initially hold stock in the new companies, although Mark and other executives would probably be required to divest their management shares.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
And Google too
Actually, a well written article, with many good and obvious points.
And the FEC should go after them too for the multi-billions of dollars in free democrat support.
Much simpler (and more beneficial) approach: just shut them down. Turn off the power, smash their servers and arrest all the employees.
And while they’re at it, go after the major broadcast media companies.
>>He controls three core communications platforms — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — that billions of people use every day.
And who approved the mergers in this monopoly?
FB jail didn't exist until folks started posting anti islam posts.
Preferable after many FTC and anti-trust lawsuits with substantial damage settlements are metted out.
Absolutely. Google TOO.
President Trump, just issue an “EO”,declare these social media sites “ultillites”, thus extend the term monopoly to them.
THIS JUST IN Around 160 official US Govt agencies have Twitter accounts through early 2014.
There are probably many more....I have not found a comparable list of Facebook
accounts, but it has to be enormous.
Mmmmmmmm.....I can just hear Trump issuing the Ex/Order as we type......”no govt agency shall have an account on social media.”
FYI——TRUMPS’S SOCIAL MEDIA HUD COMPLAINT NOW IN MOTION SAYS: Facebook mines extensive user data and classifies its users based on protected characteristics. Facebook’s ad targeting tools then invite advertisers to express unlawful preferences by suggesting discriminatory options. Among those options are physical disabilities, parents with children and even religious practices — advertisers are allowed to show their ads only to people Facebook deems interested in “Jesus” or the “Christian Church,” for example. Those practices could violate the Civil Rights Act, HUD said in the complaint, dated August 13.
FaceBook and Mark Zuckerberg are a self-dealing, intrusive publicly-held corporate entity.
ZUCKER IS CAPABLE OF ALMOST ANYTHING (HAT TIP gaijin)
Stole business ideas
Stole all the shares from his BEST friend
Secretly sold users’ data
Stated in a confidential email to a friend that people who trust him are “dumb-f*cks”.
Married in the community property state of California, the very day AFTER he took Facebook public.
Requested nude photos of users to “protect them against the risk of revenge porn”.
Secretly tried to get hospitals to release vast stores of patient data “so I can help cure diseases”.
Initially pursued total rights ownership of images uploaded to FB; if you’d been photoed as a happy youth with, say, a can of Coors then later got really famous, Zuck could be paid by Coors for zero work and YOUR old photo in a new ad while you, the centerpiece of the ad, would get NOTHING.
Struck down after lengthy legal battles.
De-platformed numerous Conservatives because he didn’t agree with their views, couldn’t define hate-speech when asked by Congress.
Secretly requested banks give him his users’ financial data, including transactions, so “my users can check their balances on my site.”
Digitally permitted his housing advertisers to filter out customers whose search histories were strongly associated with terms like “handicapped” , “mobility scooter” and “guide dog”.
Admonished that people “build bridges instead of walls”, all while building walls around his Palo Alto homes and around the huge Kauai Estate he bought and then threw the Hawaiians off of, an effort requiring 300 seperate lawsuits against local Hawaiian land claimants.
Established a “trustworthiness index” for ALL his facebook users while disclosing it to none of them.
Altered FB algorithms to flag content from conservative publications as spam.
Reveres Augustus Caesar, leader of Rome who assured 200 years of peace via harsh rule, possibly arranging the execution of his own grandson. On a wedding anniversary trip to Rome, Zuck gushed so effusively over sculptures and monuments dedicated to Augustus that his wife joked that three people, not two, were on their trip.
For years, Zuck traditionally closed high-level Facebook executive meetings by shouting, “DOMINATION..!”, perhaps half-jokingly.
Proposed installation in the homes of FB users special Facebook cameras that would monitor users and follow them around as they went about their private lives inside their homes. But the cameras, Zuckerberg assured, would come with privacy settings which Facebook would, like, totally respect, or something.
Asked for user telephone numbers for 2 factor authentication but within weeks used that data for marketing purposes. If users chose to share their entire contact list, Facebook also shared that data with advertisers, even phone numbers of people who NEVER had a facebook account.
After the Cambridge Analytica scandal, FB vowed to reinvigorate user privacy but neither of these practices has stopped.
In the runup to the 2018 midterm elections, FB removed over 800 conservative political pages and accounts in a clamp down on what the social media company arbitrarily termed, “inauthentic behavior”. The ambitious political move affected 66 million FB users, most of them Conservative.
Permitted the search term “white genocide” to be used as a targeting criterion to aim advertising for products at 170,000 users who interacted with that subject.
When at their SF HQ in 2016 FB employees replaced a mural slogal, “Black Lives Matter” with the words, “All Lives Matter”, Zuck returned the slogan to its original and reprimanded the employees as, “malicious and disrespectful”.
In South Sudan in late Nov. 2018, Facebook permitted the auctioning of a CHILD BRIDE, age 16. The girl was sold for 500 cows, 3 cars and $10,000 and went into hiding. Five men, including some “high-ranking government officials,” bid on the girl, according to Children’s rights organization Plan International.
At the same time it was revealed that Mexican child molesters had been using Facebook’s Messenger app to collude regarding available kids and ongoing grooming prospects.
Let's discuss solutions that exist in the real world, not fantasyland.
I know in the Navy, every Navy command has a Facebook account, and many smaller organizations within these commands (FCPOAs, JOPAs, etc. ) have their own as well. These are official accounts.
The FTC, which is why the statement Mr. Hughes made at the end of this fantastic article gives me pause:
This movement of public servants, scholars and activists deserves our support. Mark Zuckerberg cannot fix Facebook, but our government can.
While the former MAY be correct, the latter is definitely NOT correct. They may have a hand in helping, but it must lie in the hands of the people. The depressing part of that statement is that "the People" are sheep and are quite happy in their pens being led to slaughter, just as long as their iPhones are charged.
Thanks for that......will add.
Thanks RoosterRedux.
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