After an 18-month investigation, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and 46 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Guam, filed a lawsuit alleging that Facebook employed anti-competitive tactics that allowed it to bully and bury rivals. The filing recommends breaking up the company.
I think this is especially significant for Guam. So happy you guys are in the news. Also, I wonder which four states did not participate? I’m guessing one of them is Nevada. Probably over-slept or something.
Guam aside, it seems like the New York attorney general is out for blood when she said: “For nearly a decade, Facebook has used its dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals and snuff out competition. By using its vast troves of data and money, Facebook has squashed or hindered what the company perceived to be potential threats.”
No argument there. Still …
The sound of silence
Here’s the weird thing about this case. Nobody I know — and I mean nobody — really wants any significant disruption to happen. Don’t you think the social media community would be railing against evil Facebook and feeling some relief about this lawsuit if things are that bad? Fact is, we sort of want this action to go away.
Full article here.
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Matt Ruby:
I was not alerted
I used to get lost all the time. I’d ask for directions, look for landmarks, fold maps, carry a guidebook, and keep an atlas in the glove compartment. I never knew when the next train was coming. I waited around a lot.
I memorized phone numbers, jotted things down in notebooks, had conversations with taxi drivers, talked to random people at bars, wrote checks, went to the bank, and daydreamed. I was grossly inefficient and terribly bored. I rarely got what I wanted and, when I did, I had to wait at least 8-10 days for it to be delivered. I was not archived, nor was I searchable; things I said just disappeared forever.
I had no idea how many steps I'd walked or stairs I’d climbed. My desk’s height did not adjust; I just sat in a chair and took it. I tolerated unstapled stomachs, breasts which subjugated themselves to gravity, and butts that were incapable of functioning as shelves. I had no influence and never disrupted anything. Strangers did not wish me a happy birthday or “Like” me. My personal brand was invisible.
I operated on hunches, browsed bookstores, and fearlessly entered restaurants on a whim, with no knowledge of the party of eight who’d travelled all the way from Connecticut to dine there and who, despite their reservations for 8:45pm, were not seated until 9:30pm and then had to endure a server who was extremely rude, unprofessional, and “tattooed up on his neck.”
Full article here.
