# US government vs big tech. Possible big tech breakup?



## FAST6191 (Dec 20, 2020)

While the US federal government and various state level things have been rattling a sabre at big California silicon valley companies for years now in various manners it seems they actually decided to do something. Facebook (owners of facebook, facebook ads, whatsapp and instagram) and Google (these days under a parent company of alphabet, owners of google search engine, google ads, youtube and several others) being the first two to see notable actions taken by the US government. Surprising to many it is not actually section 230 provisions (the ones that allow internet companies to not be sued for what their users post if in fact they are a host, cross that line into being a publisher, which they might well be by virtue of them playing censor/shadow bans/algorithmically slowing people/promoting "authoritative sources" aka big news channels that pay us, and you own what your agents, these are people you pay after all, and users do) but more old school monopolies and antitrust. This also comes at an interesting time for US politics, though whether a potential change in administration (especially if said change is massively supported by said same companies) will attempt to squash such things or indeed embrace them remains to be seen.

Sources are usually good. Each of those has the document filed with the courts available, sadly redacted in the case of the facebook complaint though still plenty readable and attached here (same name, one with FB in it is facebook, the one with google in it is the google one)
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2020/12/ftc-sues-facebook-illegal-monopolization
FTC = Federal trade commission, though if you see the filings there are a great many states signed on to this as well.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-monopolist-google-violating-antitrust-laws
Justice department. The big umbrella organisation for the various federal law enforcement agencies.
"Attorney General of the United States, and the States of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, and Texas, acting through their respective Attorneys general"

Nothing so far on Amazon (owners of Twitch which is apparently kind of popular among this whole gaming bit), though on the more gaming side of things one might look at Steam as it could well fall under similar umbrellas. The US telecoms market is also often viewed as something of a duopoly, though monopoly in places, this despite considerable efforts many years before to break such things up.

That said there has been an information gathering probe for some serious analytics which does include Amazon
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/pre...rs-nine-social-media-video-streaming-services


> The orders are being sent to Amazon.com, Inc., ByteDance Ltd., which operates the short video service TikTok, Discord Inc., Facebook, Inc., Reddit, Inc., Snap Inc., Twitter, Inc., WhatsApp Inc., and YouTube LLC.


Of particular interest is likely to be the sample letter (also attached here) that details what they are after (under normal times such information likely being fairly closely guarded and highly sanitised, as well as buffed to be most favourable, if disseminated to the public)
https://www.ftc.gov/reports/6b-orde...ocial-media-video-streaming-service-providers

Anyway antitrust ( https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-case-filings-alpha ) tends to fall under what is known more colloquially and elsewhere as monopolistic practices. Here a company might well set up on the scene, buy up everybody above and below them such that competition is near impossible. When no competition exists a company might well be able to dictate terms, prices, future direction of a field... basically everything most would rather not happen and what the so called free market is designed to avoid. Few would be able to argue that Facebook and Google's control of advertising (which for these purposes are consumers) and video content has not been stifling to a great many, even before they decided to play censor and arbiter of the truth.

https://www.khanacademy.org/economi...v/oligopolies-duopolies-collusion-and-cartels

Not everybody thinks such powers being exercised is a good thing


Even without that (though some would argue the following actually makes things worse and is a big factor in why not to) most government actions in this field are blunt as anything rather than the more surgical excision that a company choosing to sell of a division might employ. Indeed Google's "split" into Alphabet the other year was seen as a pre-emptive move against this sort of thing by most, though there are other perks to doing such things.

Thoughts then? Too little, too late? Better late than never? Keep your government claws out of the free market? Like to see some action but wary? With bandwidth prices and server costs falling through the floor are they going to find themselves competing on merits (plenty of "alt tech" video platforms and short form conversation platforms are rising up and doing pretty well for themselves, even if they are dunked on for increasingly dubious reasons by those in pocket or thrall to the existing setups where before video hosting was only for the rich) so this is pointless?


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## Flame (Dec 20, 2020)

nothing will change. goverments are brought and sold by big companies. countries are lucky if they not broken up by companies. not the other way round.


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## Taleweaver (Dec 21, 2020)

Erm...it's not that I'm against this (I am, in fact, in favor). But can the government POSSIBLE pick a worse moment to bring this to the table?
-covid deaths are at record levels
-unemployment (for the most part due to covid) is pushing enormous amounts of families in debts
-US hospitals can barely keep afloat, buried under the many cases
-the transitioning period to the next president isn't exactly going smoothly

So who is really on this case? A few extra white house interns? 

Again: I'm in favor of splitting up big tech companies. But right now it feels like complimenting someone who aligns the deck chairs on the Titanic.


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## FAST6191 (Dec 21, 2020)

Flame said:


> nothing will change. goverments are brought and sold by big companies. countries are lucky if they not broken up by companies. not the other way round.


Do I think they have outsized power even without their ability to put a thumb of the scales of human communication? Sure. Don't know if I would quite use a phrase like bought and paid for but they go to the same parties.
That said even in recent times there have been successful (as in managed to break up) and threats to such things also form the basis of much business. Yes.



Taleweaver said:


> Erm...it's not that I'm against this (I am, in fact, in favor). But can the government POSSIBLE pick a worse moment to bring this to the table?
> -covid deaths are at record levels
> -unemployment (for the most part due to covid) is pushing enormous amounts of families in debts
> -US hospitals can barely keep afloat, buried under the many cases
> ...


Record levels but nothing too unmanageable.
Unpleasant but not sure why the business lawyers and the like are bothered -- lawyering tends to be a rather focused skill.
Again not sure what a bunch of lawyers and interns are going to be able to do here.
Does the person wearing the el presidente hat really matter in this?

I equally don't get the "OMG everybody panic". Shit happens, this is hardly unprecedented or even that drastic. The sky is not falling, and if it is then kung flu is but a blip in the causes of it. The next few years will likely suck but they were always going to (most of the holders of the funds, that being people born now some 70 years ago, are set to die off if average human lifespan is going to be a thing and that was always going to be a fun one whether they got dropped by a new disease or the various other "natural causes").


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## Taleweaver (Dec 21, 2020)

FAST6191 said:


> Record levels but nothing too unmanageable.
> Unpleasant but not sure why the business lawyers and the like are bothered -- lawyering tends to be a rather focused skill.
> Again not sure what a bunch of lawyers and interns are going to be able to do here.
> Does the person wearing the el presidente hat really matter in this?
> ...


Oh, okay. Glad to hear you find it "hardly unprecedented". 

Me and my different opinion will take it elsewhere.


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## FAST6191 (Dec 21, 2020)

Taleweaver said:


> Oh, okay. Glad to hear you find it "hardly unprecedented".
> 
> Me and my different opinion will take it elsewhere.


There have been unpleasant diseases before (people get all "is this the one" every few years -- bird flu, zika, swine flu, HIV/AIDs, superbugs, ebola, murs, CJD/BSE with the deer variety likely being one of the next big ones)...and that is not even mentioning more historical ones), they follow patterns we have long had nice mathematical models for, it had been predicted for a long time (poor sanitation + lots of people + animals, especially random ones, in the mix... it is the standard model to generate a new one), stockpiles of things kept (though dubiously renewed/tested in some case) and protocols in place to handle things. So yeah hardly unprecedented. Equally it will end at some point, be it by becoming endemic, someone makes and distributes a good vaccine, quasi herd immunity.

But really what good are are a bunch of trade, tech, business, monopoly and the like lawyers going to do? Even if they were inclined to retrain that is still several years.
Equally does such a thing mean all the other problems get pushed to the side? The troubles with these companies has been known for a number of years now (a phrase I heard that I will roll with is if this had happened 5 years ago it would still have been dragging their feet). Why save the world if you are only going to hand it over?


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