New challengers approach.
Tag: antitrust
🎧 Solving the Facebook Problem at Home and Abroad | On the Media | WNYC Studios
When former Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes penned a New York Times op-ed calling for the breakup of the platform, he was lauded by anti-corporate politicians and the press. Then came a series of hard questions: how exactly would breaking up Facebook, which owns WhatsApp and Instagram, address free speech concerns? Or help stifle the spread of propaganda on the platform? And how would American regulations affect the majority of Facebook users, who live in the global south? According to Michael Lwin, an American-born antitrust lawyer living in Yangon, Myanmar, US regulators should tread lightly. He and Bob speak about how calls to break up Facebook could have wide ranging unintended consequences, especially outside of the US.
As bad as Facebook is, there are some potential second and multiple-order effects to be careful of when considering breaking them up or heavily regulating them.
👓 How Google and Amazon Got So Big Without Being Regulated | WIRED
Internet companies used to grow big and die—fast. But now a few of them are huge and entrenched, because regulators didn't foresee their dominance.
👓 There is no single solution to making the internet more decentralised – The art of the possible | The Economist
Stopping the internet from getting too concentrated will be a slog, but the alternative would be worse
This has generally been an interesting series of articles in The Economist.
As John Sherman, the senator who gave his name to America’s original antitrust law in 1890, put it at a time when the robber barons ruled much of America’s economy: “If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation and sale of any of the necessaries of life.” ❧