On Thursday , Facebook co - founding father Chris Hughespenned an editorialin the New York Times calling for the company tobe broken up , its underling Instagram and WhatsApp spin off , and future acquisition ostracise for several age . Hughes argued that Facebook , and by filename extension its all - powerful CEO Mark Zuckerberg , suppresses competition by “ acquiring , blocking or copying ” it , has wholesale power over speech , and is so giving it can ignore virtually all chassis of outside accountability . He also call for the formation of an independent government agency to mold tech companies .
In response , Facebook trotted outits own op - edin the New York Times on Saturday , this time write by former deputy government minister of the UK and current Facebook vice President of the United States for global social function and communications Nick Clegg .
Clegg remold a line that the company ’s executives have trotted out so many times that it ’s beyond a banality : They experience they have some work to do . He also offered an cockeyed misreading of Hughes ’ argument , boiling it down to “ ‘ big ’ poses a danger to gild , ” reiterated Facebook ’s stance that it is “ in the strange perspective of asking for more regularisation , not less , ” and provide a preview of the party ’s playbook for maintain itself against theoretical future antitrust enforcement .
Photo: Andrew Harnik (AP)
Hughes pointed out that over two - thirds of the 70 percent of U.S. adults on societal media use Facebook , while a third use Instagram and a fifth manipulation WhatsApp , while “ few than a third report using Pinterest , LinkedIn or Snapchat . ” Clegg responded that “ all of our merchandise and service fight for customers ” against those companies :
The first misinterpretation is about Facebook itself and the competitive dynamics in which we operate . We are a large company made up of many smaller piece . All of our products and services scrap for customers . Each one has at least three or four rival with hundreds of millions , if not billion , of user . In photo and video - sharing , we contend against divine service like YouTube , Snapchat , Twitter , Pinterest and TikTok , an come forth competitor .
Clegg also muddied the waters by arguing that schoolbook and telecasting messaging service from iMessage to Skype name competition to Facebook ’s center product — which is where he pivoted to talking about China . Clegg wrote that break up Facebook would be equivalent to “ dismantling one of America ’s full-grown global histrion , ” which seems to be a clear appeal to paranoia about U.S.’songoing economical rivalrywith China :
In message , we ’re not even the leader in the top three food market — China , Japan and , by our estimation , the United States — where we vie with Apple ’s iMessage , WeChat , Line and Microsoft ’s Skype . Globally , the context in which social metier must be empathise , China alone has several large social medium companies , including powerhouses like Tencent and Sina . It will seem perverse to mass in Europe , and certainly in China , to see American policymakers talking about rase one of America ’s biggest worldwide thespian .
Clegg also argued that Facebook earns nearly all of its online ad revenue from advertizing , and it only controls about 20 percent of the entire online ad market in the U.S.—which in and of itself is actually a very swelled bit ! But it ’s also a statistic that belies Facebook ’s in effect supremacy ofad dollars on societal mediaworldwide . In the UK , for example , eMarketer estimatesFacebook controls over 80 percent of the social advertising securities industry .
Later , Clegg respond to Hughes ’ point that courts and antitrust office in the U.S. have been increasingly hesitating to intervene in cases where large troupe do not price gouge — ignoring “ the full cost of market place domination , ” like suppression of competition and innovation . Clegg fundamentally sidestepped this by just repeat that Facebook is free , just even bothering to address those other allegation of anticompetitive behavior :
The second misunderstanding is of antimonopoly natural law . These law of nature , develop in the 1800s , are not meant to punish a company because people disaccord with its management . Their main aim is to protect consumers by ensure they have approach to abject - toll , high - quality products and service . And especially in the case of engineering , rapid innovation . That is exactly where Facebook puts its attention : building the best product , complimentary for consumers , and fund by advertiser .
In other words : tl;dr .
Clegg attack off his reaction by touting Facebook ’s supposed advancements in safe and security of their service . Aside from the fact that Facebook has in reality done a jaw - droppingly defective job of doing everything fromsafeguarding user datato react efficaciously to accusations ofcomplicity in the Myanmar genocide(and its problem withmisinformation , fake news , andelection meddlingremain a gaping maw ) , this has very little to do with antitrust law itself .
In fact , it could passably be characterized as an attempt to excuse Facebook ’s own largess on the grounds that only it has the plate to fix the job it created . ( This becomes even more cephalalgia - induce consider that platforms oftentrot out their monolithic scaleas an excuse for their unsuccessful person to stop proliferation of hateful substance . )
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1127274003884851200
“ Our budget for safety gadget this year is bigger than the whole revenue of our company was when we sound public before this tenner , ” Zuckerberg append . “ A mass of that is because we ’ve been able to build a successful business sector that can now support that . You know , we invest more in safety than anyone in social media . ”
Hmm . Too big and crucial to fail , you say .
To some extent , there ’s not much young here : Zuckerberg has already called formore outside regulationof Facebook , though mostly the kind of regularisation that would tidy up up major headaches for the society and not terribly affect its bottom course or sprawl expansion across the globe . Most of Clegg ’s talk points are generic remixes of ones the company has issued in the past .
But Facebook is clearly at least a little spooked at Hughes ’ hypnotism that it be break up , and it ’s deploy its undecomposed lobbying gobbledygook to match .
[ New York Times ]
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