I have trouble understanding why we should break up Facebook but not google. Is it because we think google is less evil than Facebook?
The article does not argue against breaking up Google, in fact it says:
> Finally, an aggressive case against Facebook would persuade other behemoths like Google and Amazon to think twice about stifling competition in their own sectors, out of fear that they could be next.
It's basically saying Google's next if it doesn't mend its ways.
I don't think that answers GP's question though,
why is facebook first?
Why is facebook the chosen one. Surely it wasn't chosen using random number generator.
> Why is facebook the chosen one. Surely it wasn't chosen using random number generator.
It's it obvious? It's been far more transparently shameless.
> I don't think that answers GP's question though,
It does. The op was asking a why/why not question. He didn't even mention the concept of sequence.
There but for fortune.
Because the article's written by a Facebook co-founder and the framing here is therefore through that lens? I think any of the others could have (and have been previously) chosen as the one to focus on.
On a more philosophical point, Facebook is very "personal". The core money-making business acts of Google and Amazon are focused around intent to do something, whereas Facebook's entire raison d'etre is to monopolise the whole gamut of your daily interaction.
That's not to say the others aren't either, but it's so explicit to who Facebook is, they're an easier one to focus on first.
It's not as clear that stripping away YouTube or Android etc from Google would have the same sort of effect. It's hard to see how Bing or DuckDuckGo would benefit against Google Search, although it might allow some other businesses to more effectively compete against YouTube or Android.
It has not been caught selling user data the same way FB has. It does not have the same reach / social control, since it's never managed to create a social network with enough traction.
Still, some control is needed, but I think we should all agree that Facebook should be top priority?
It’s a matter of perspective (and sometimes reality). Let’s not pretend that the Russians couldn’t have bought google ads, it’s simply that Facebook’s audience targeting is way, way better than google’s because their surveillance economy is richer.
It’s complicated. Is Facebook simply too good at targeting?
This is part of why I’m working on mobilecoin. Can you imagine Facebook ad targeting if they also have all of your payment information?
Users are already Leaving.
I don't see why we can't let FAANG grow big and fail like every other company.
Do you really think a company of Facebook's scale will be able to detect and somehow neutralize all of the political ads that are introduced into their targeting systems even if they wanted to, which they don't because it's antithetical to their revenue narrative.
In Asia their platforms haven’t been used to help countries commit genocide.
I mean, you could make the case for breaking up google for monopoly reasons, but google has mostly just done business the way amazon or Microsoft has. And unlike Facebook, google has been branching out of the advertising business for a while with their cloud services, hardware and paid software.
If I want a privacy secure add-free gmail, I can actually get that by throwing money after google.
I haven’t heard about google products being used to organise genocides though, but Facebook has.