Last week, the Federal Trade Commission filed its amended antitrust complaint against Facebook FB, +0.59%. The amendment was needed because a federal judge dismissed the FTC’s first complaint, finding that the agency had failed “to plausibly establish…that Facebook has monopoly power in the market for Personal Social Networking Services.” The judge allowed the FTC the opportunity to fix that deficiency.
In dismissing the FTC’s initial filing, the judge did not quibble with the FTC’s chosen market definition but did say the agency had not provided sufficient information to show market power. In its amended complaint, the agency tried to remedy that deficiency by providing statistics on social media users’ choices of service providers and time spent using selected services. Based on the amended complaint, the FTC still faces an uphill battle.
Are there great substitutes for Facebook? Evidently. According to Backlinko, the average American has more than seven social media accounts. And people are finding more and more social media options: On a global basis, the number of accounts per person nearly doubled between 2014 and 2020. As I also wrote previously:
Regarding advertising, the Justice Department and some state attorneys general have an antitrust case against Alphabet GOOG, +0.92%, claiming it uses search to monopolize advertising, and other state attorneys general claim that Google monopolizes advertising technology. The definition of a monopoly is such that Facebook and Google cannot have both monopolized advertising.
Been saying this forever. 1) the service is free and 2) you do NOT NEED facebook. Milions of people have never been on it..
yeah it's not like people are reading facebook posts and guzzling horse dewormer or anything. pff
Facebook is a cancer on society. Find a reason to regulate it for the sake of democracy.
Maybe they should be looking at Microsoft then. No one ever seems to concerned that MS has a monopoly on the O/S for PCs(& don't give me that crap about how we could just choose to use Linux or Mac instead, that doesn't fly). PC's come with Windows. Period. That's a monopoly. :/
Goodbye all my invest ! Please all company crash, collapse and bankrupt, really I like this !
wow
It’s killing people who use it for news. Which is most Americans, unfortunately. More fake news regarding vaccines that are only pulled after everyone already read them, is the main reason we are still in trouble. FB should be shut down. No brainer!
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