How Facebook Is Changing to Deal With Scrutiny of Its Power

The FTC might rather consider looking into the millions of un-conscious Facebook users who use Facebook mindlessly, without regard to their data, or the garbage FB advertises in front of their eyeballs everyday. The reason FB even exists is because of mass-gullability, laziness, and novelty (now wearing thin) around social networking by it's users. I like to think of FB as a large garbage can into which the careless fall. The advertisers are also to blame - for not carefully vetting the connection between their ad dollars and the claimed exposures on this idiotic platform. The entire news reporting and print industry has been decimated by the short-sighted ad buyers who put FB on the map. However, let there not be anxiety over the situation. As Western democracies rule that a clear line exists between the PUBLIC DOMAIN and Private Forums, FB will find that IT IS responsible for content after all - and the costs of managing billions of idiotic check-ins, posts and videos will bankrupt them.

Zuck has been doing everything in his power to stifle competition including having a model that gives away his service for "free". That "free" is what makes it impossible for current anti-trust laws to be effective against Zuck and his minions.

Sean Fitzgerald “How Facebook is Changing to Deal With Scrutiny of Its Power” questions whether Facebook’s recent combination of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram is an attempt to evade dismantling under anti-trust laws or simply smart business. Facebook insists the underlying intent of unification was to create a more private platform on which individuals could communicate securely. The Federal Trade Commission (“F.T.C.”), however, is investigating Facebook’s potential anticompetitive practices after uncovering documentation about Facebook’s “serial defensive acquisitions” in an effort to reduce competition. What I find interesting about this article is that the F.T.C.’s interest was piqued after Facebook’s privacy violations. If the government aggressively applies anti-trust laws to Facebook, it might make it easier for new social media platforms to enter the market which are more focused on offering consumers the type of data protection which is currently absent from the internet. Consumers would then have a real choice about exactly what type of social media platform they want to use. Since concern regarding the security of personal information uploaded onto social media platforms continues to rise due to an increase in hacking and the insufficiency of privacy settings, it is critical that other potential social media platforms have an opportunity to break into the market with improved data protections.

Anytime a facebook exec tosses in a line like '...plain and simple...," that's the tell for where the lie is.

First a shout out to a great Netflix documentary, "The Big Hack", about Cambridge Analytica, and the coordinated hacking of the BREXIT vote, the US 2016 election, and other democracies around the world. To understand the dangerous power of an unregulated Facebook and social media to undermine democracy, see how foreign agents identify 'persuadables', (people who can be persuaded), and then blanket them with social media ads, videos, calls to action, etc to 'push their buttons', that is, hammering the emotional triggers identified through data points collected through social media like Facebook, that cause them to engage emotionally on any issue. This is why it is a matter of national and global security that Facebook and its ilk be regulated and broken apart. But the underlying issue here, is a dispute over the definition of property rights, regarding personal information and data privacy. Personal information IS personal property. And no company should be allowed to discover, collect, buy or sell personal information without explicit consent, and limited single instance use. Breaking up Facebook doesn't go far enough. It's a start, but woefully inadequate to the real scope of the problem.

Facebook messaging continues to be full of potential virus' and fraud. Anyone who actually still uses it is uninformed. If they connect it to the messaging of the others, people will and should stop using it. They have blatantly told us we have no actual privacy on their network after years of tricking people into thinking that parts of their platform were "locked down" and not there for anyone to use in any way they want. Someone really needs to create another better form of facebook. In addition, they were complacent in the Russians using their platform for interfering in our elections and may have also been used to kill dissodents in Syria. They are an outrage and ought to be shut down or at least shunned. I really wish some people would skip them and send communications directly. Doesn't everyone have phones nowadays anyway? That we have not been compensated for the huge fraud of Cambridge Analytica is proof of the ineffectiveness of our Congress and regulatory system. We are supposed to have a balance of power but the Potus controls this lack of serious investigation and compensation.

Facebook is evil. Take a look at articles in Reveal about how they exploit children and people with social gaming addictions in order to make a profit. Everybody looks the other way because they are all dependent on their “feeds”. I’m not against social media in principle and would love to have an alternative to Instagram but I refuse to allow FB to profit off my activity.

If the countries politicians weren't a bunch of septuagenarian Luddites, maybe they'd have understood the gravity of social medias hold on society a decade ago and put the legislated it properly, bit late now!

It should be very clear from this article that Zuckerberg will defend Facebook. Even to the the detriment of the United States, and to the world. Profit and wealth über alles.

Splitting the company would be a partial answer to the problem. As rightly stated by another contributor, FB & Co are about data mining, with the use and storage of the collected data a complete mystery - and hence a complete monopoly. In the past, under the anti trust laws, IBM has had to make public its proprietary communication protocol between mainframes and terminals (3270). As a result it was possible to choose hardware from IBM, ITT, and even...Nokia. As well, Kodak had to stop selling its Kodachrome line of films processing included, which resulted in the publication of the chemistry "recipe" so to allow independant labs to process the film. If both companies later came through near death experience, neither the 3270 nor the Kodachrome case had something to do with it. And the matters at stake were far, far less important than the consequences of FB's processing of its users data. So in FB case, the really anti trust measure would be to have them make public (under some kind of CC licenses) what is their monopoly, i.e. the nature and the processing of the collected data. The same should be done with Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple.

It's not a "social network," whatever that is supposed to mean. It's a data-mining company.

Accumulated wealth and power has acted consistently throughout history to consolidate and increase its power. Why would anyone have expected the large tech companies to behave differently? Their Orwellian euphemisms (make 'friends' on Facebook! 'Follow thought-leaders' on Instagram) can't hide the fact that the tech industry and tech moguls are simply updated and more insidious versions of their nineteenth century predecessors: keep the masses amused and distracted with smoke and mirrors while you lift their wallets.

How about a massive fine from the EU that will mean FACEBOOk goes out of business forever!

I'm "ok" with their mission to "connect as many people as possible", but I completely disagree with what they do with all the info and data they collect on us while we attempt to connect with the rest of the world. Facebook turned us into products and sold us to companies with unspeakable goals and purposes - including fueling this global wave of populism and leverage the ignorance of millions to generate revenues - I deactivated my account, and I'll never be back

A word from someone who is not so anti-Facebook as my FB friends and family have helped me get through some important life changes--the 2008 recession loses also of my long term apartment home, the death of my Mom, moving long distance to a senior friendlier place. It does have to be used with caution and common sense.

Facebook is more tool used by troublemakers than the source of problems. If you want to really get to the source of problems, start with Fox News and the like. We need good policy, not a public flogging of one company for political gains. But I guess that a public flogging is a lot easier to do than passing real voting reforms to ensure that every citizen can vote without interference, removing money from the political system, or gun control. The privacy issue is clearly something that they should be monitored for and were punished for, but blaming FB for all that is wrong with society by some candidates misses the true source of the problem. I find it interesting that people complain about their FB feed being full of political stuff. The algorithm just gives you what you react to, so ignore the garbage and individuals who promote it, and before long you will have a nice "clean" feed of your real friends and their kids vacationing.

Facebook presents one of the most dangerous evils of our times. Their seemingly innocent global mission to “re-connect “ people is a covert cover to deceive 2.41 billion users of their nefarious crimes. I urgently beg legislators and politicians to SHUT DOWN FB NOW!

FB is in fact dragging its feet in every possible way - with a big crocodile grin about the need for US regulation from a paralyzed Congress and amoebic POTUS, while Europe has become the de facto global legislator of consumer privacy. The last clear example is Europe's GDPR legislation which apply to FB along with all the other US services (Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc) and which all the other big players have voluntarily applied to their services globally. Facebook is the one major online platform that has refused to extend basic European privacy protections outside the narrow confines of its EU operations.

Democratic candidates should run on shutting down Facebook. It is not as popular in reality as it’s numbers say. No one would really care if it was closed down. A few addicted teenagers would care the rest would move on. Our democracy is threatened by the control of information.

Facebook is the worst thing to happen to the internet. It has allowed the most heinous people a worldwide platform to spew hate and vitriol. Zuckerberg should should shut it down and apologize to the world for inflicting this menace upon us.

Where is the Facebook Watch daily reporting of identified and authenticated fake posts, blogs and pages that are designed to disrupt and annihilate our elections and social fabric? Why does corporate media/"journalism" neglect to rise to this occasion? They could do much to avoid government control and our hatred, but instead continue unchecked and totally corrupted in their chase for profits. Comey and Mueller have identified that our elections and campaigns continue to be infiltrated from anarchists at home and abroad, yet there is no reporting or reminding the public that election and community saboteurs are at work every second.

Facebook is in the process of releasing their own currency, they have over a billion "citizens" and Mark Zuckerburg is the supreme leader. The Feds will not "break up" Facebook anymore than they "broke up" Microsoft, what they will do is make sure Facebook and Zucerkburg, spread the wealth around in DC and other bastions of elite power circles so everyone gets a taste. Yummy.

Whether by choice or by accident, technology has leapt out of everyone’s control. Facebook, YouTube (Alphabet), Amazon - each of these companies laid brilliant ground work for success circa ten years ago. But over the last decade the advancements in A.I. have outpaced any reasonable metric of oversight - from inside or outside these companies. Facebook is just plain scary. YouTube’s algorithm shows kids extremely inappropriate content (ask any parent). The quality of products you get from Amazon has declined significantly - not just bent books but weird products from weird vendors you wouldn’t even consider if you saw them in real life before purchasing. All of this free and cheap stuff has suddenly become very expensive in new and unforeseen ways. We need people to scrutinize the finest details of how these companies operate if we are to retain any semblance of life as we know it. It’s not too late.

If we're relying on congress and the FTC as this article considers then temper any optimism with the freight train that is Citizens United. Democrats have to get to work on the mechanism that allows for unalloyed greed to become policy that impacts us all in negative ways.

Why didn't either Republicans or Democrats object when Facebook was buying Instagram and What's App? It was clearly anticompetitive. Suddenly politicians notice these actions are anticompetitive. I wonder have they noticed that Amazon is using its profits from government contract with Amazon Web Services to subsidized its Predatory Pricing from its retail business. At least on paper, Amazon loses money on all of those packages it mails to people homes. They can afford to lose that money because they make billions in Defense Department and Department of Interior contracts. When the last department store goes out of business, will politicians notice that Amazon is anticompetitive?

Facebook should be closed down immediately two days a week. It’s purpose is now questionable. If necessary only allow it to open one day a week. There is no need in society for Facebook , it has already proven to be a threat to our democracy.

Exhibit A for why Facebook must be broken up. Integrating messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram is just plain bad faith. They know it’s anticompetitive, which is why they are doing it.

If Facebook came in a pack, it would have a WARNING label that we are all familiar with.