This is getting serious. The House panel report urges the breakup of tech giants, including Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.
I can understand Amazon because they sell stuff that is necessary for life such as food and necessities. Their dominance can be quantified in dollars. Apple (and Amazon) are big in the entertainment industry, especially music, again in which dominance can be measured in dollars.
Google deals with a number of services such as providing internet, phone, datacomm services and cell phones. Google also sells a huge amount of advertising services. These and other stuff Google sells can be quantified in dollars to determine dominance.
Facebook sells advertising services. But they don’t sell any hardware or software to their users. They have no users that cannot stop using their services. After five years on Facebook, I deleted the Facebook app from my phone on 2020 July 1 and it’s now Oct. 6, and I haven’t been on it for more than 3 months. Anyone can do the same. I don’t have a Twitter account. I don’t use Instagram. I don’t use Whatsapp. There is no need for the social media. It does make it easier but we got along with Facebook or Twitter for years without a problem.
The one problem I see with Facebutt is their invasion of my privacy. They monitor my actions and then I see adverts about things I never put on Facebook. Do they peek at my emails? Do they look at the cookies that other websites put on my cellphone? I don’t know if they do. I feel I don’t have any control over my privacy.
Another thing Facebook doesn’t do is take down the hate messages that hate groups create. That was why there were a bunch of companies that boycotted Facebook – they stopped advertising. That was why I joined the #StopHateForProfit movement and boycotted Facebook. But the loss in advertising was small and Facebook ignored it. Even as huge as Facebook is when it comes to advertising, I’m fairly certain they are nowhere as huge as Google’s Doubleclick.
What Facebook has faced is heavy criticism for not policing their services in foreign countries. Facebook services have been abused by bad people. One example is suppression of free speech by the government in the Philippines. And there is also a lot of fake Facebook accounts being created by the Russians and other bad actors. Facebook has to delete millions of them.
More information
https://finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/house-democrats-urge-internet-giants-202412213.html
