{"id":337551,"date":"2021-10-05T14:22:47","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T14:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=df1f05c7381f5953849210cd4225445c"},"modified":"2021-10-05T14:22:47","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T14:22:47","slug":"facebook-outage-bolsters-calls-to-break-up-big-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/10\/05\/facebook-outage-bolsters-calls-to-break-up-big-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Outage Bolsters Calls to Break Up Big Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"\"With<\/a>

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among the progressives calling for government action to break up Facebook after the company and its family of apps \u2014 including Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp \u2014 experienced a massive outage on Monday, rendering inaccessible services that billions of people worldwide use to communicate.<\/p>\n

“It’s almost as if Facebook’s monopolistic mission to either own, copy, or destroy any competing platform has incredibly destructive effects on free society and democracy,” the Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. “Remember: WhatsApp wasn’t created by Facebook. It was an independent success. FB got scared and bought it.”<\/p>\n

“If Facebook’s monopolistic behavior was checked back when it should’ve been (perhaps around the time it started acquiring competitors like Instagram),” the New York Democrat added, “the continents of people who depend on WhatsApp and IG for either communication or commerce would be fine right now. Break them up.”<\/p>\n

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) echoed that message, declaring<\/a>, “We should break up Big Tech.”<\/p>\n

Facebook \u2014 in a Twitter post<\/a> \u2014 apologized for “any inconvenience” that may have been caused by the outage, which lasted roughly six hours and cost CEO Mark Zuckerberg $6 billion<\/a> in net worth. In a blog post<\/a> Monday evening as its services started to come back online, Facebook blamed the outage on “configuration changes.”<\/p>\n

The blackout, believed to be the largest<\/a> in the company’s history, came just hours after “60 Minutes” aired its interview<\/a> with Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who accused the tech behemoth of putting “profit over safety” by refusing to combat rampant misinformation and incitement to violence on its platform.<\/p>\n

“Facebook is killing people,” Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), chair of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, said<\/a> following Haugen’s interview. “Whether it is teen suicides, January 6, or Covid misinformation, Facebook has shown that its unchecked power to dictate and profit from what people see online is a threat to our safety and our country.”<\/p>\n

“As I have said before,” Cicilline continued, “Facebook must be broken up and brought to justice.”<\/p>\n

At the same time as the company scrambled Monday to address an outage that critics seized upon as further evidence of its monopolistic reach, Facebook filed a motion<\/a> to dismiss the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit<\/a>, which accuses the tech giant of engaging in an illegal “buy-or-bury scheme to maintain its dominance.”<\/p>\n

“It unlawfully acquired innovative competitors with popular mobile features that succeeded where Facebook’s own offerings fell flat or fell apart,” alleges the FTC’s complaint, which specifically mentions Facebook’s purchase of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014.<\/p>\n

“To further moat its monopoly, Facebook lured app developers to the platform, surveilled them for signs of success, and then buried them when they became competitive threats,” the FTC says. “Lacking serious competition, Facebook has been able to hone a surveillance-based advertising model and impose ever-increasing burdens on its users.”<\/p>\n

In its response to the lawsuit on Monday, Facebook contended that the agency’s complaint “pleads no facts plausibly establishing that Facebook has, and at all relevant times had, monopoly power.”<\/p>\n

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Facebook was down today, but their law-firms were not. <\/p>\n

Apparently, Facebook\u2019s lawyers spent the day working to dismiss the FTC\u2019s antitrust lawsuit \u2014 again. <\/p>\n

Their effort will fail. https:\/\/t.co\/rtZrEXJFAb<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Joe Neguse (@JoeNeguse) October 5, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n