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The Antitrust Case Against Facebook: A Monopolist's Journey Towards Pervasive Surveillance in Spite of Consumers' Preference for Privacy

  • Paper
  • Nov 11, 2021
  • #EconomicInequality #SocialMedia #Law
Dina Srinivasan
@DinaSrinivasan
(Author)
lawcat.berkeley.edu
Read on lawcat.berkeley.edu
1 Recommender
1 Mention
The Facebook, Inc. (“Facebook”) social network, this era’s new communications service, plays an important role in the lives of 2+ billion people across the world. Though the marke... Show More

The Facebook, Inc. (“Facebook”) social network, this era’s new communications service, plays an important role in the lives of 2+ billion people across the world. Though the market was highly competitive in the beginning, it has since consolidated in Facebook’s favor. Today, using Facebook means accepting a product linked to broad-scale commercial surveillance—a paradox in a democracy. This Paper argues that Facebook’s ability to extract this qualitative exchange from consumers is merely this titan’s form of monopoly rents. The history of early competition, Facebook’s market entry, and Facebook’s subsequent rise tells the story of Facebook’s monopoly power. However, the history which elucidates this firm’s dominance also presents a story of anticompetitive conduct. Facebook’s pattern of false statements and misleading conduct induced consumers to trust and choose Facebook, to the detriment of market competitors and consumers’ own welfare.

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Cory Doctorow @doctorow · Nov 8, 2022
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This is mostly forgotten, but until 2008, Facebook billed itself as a privacy-friendly alternative to MySpace, promising it wouldn't spy on users, as chronicled in @DinaSrinivasan's must-read "The Antitrust Case Against Facebook":
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