In the past months the pressure on dismantling the Facebook empire has increased dramatically: from the NY times pledge by a former co-founder Chris Hughes ‘It’s Time to Break Up Facebook‘, calls to revitalize the old anti-trust laws (such as in ‘Steering with the Windshield Wipers‘ by Cory Doctorow). And all of this under increasing evidence that more or less voluntarily social networks such as Facebook have strongly influenced elections (listen to the TED talk about ‘Facebook role in Brexit and the threat to democracy‘).
One particular aspect that appears to be concerning and specific to Facebook is the unrestricted power of its founder Mark Zuckerberg (owning 60% of the voting shares) and thus the associated governance issues (things are a bit different in other internet companies). This is a particular strong point made by Chris Hughes in his column, and is quite noticeable.
Another strong aspect coming out of all this literature is the fact that certain free market ideology developing since the 1970s have made acting against monopolies less straightforward than before, and that it would be legally harder today to apply those principles.
I truly believe that sooner or later, some action will be taken against internet behemoths in the field of anti-monopoly. They might defend themselves and hire superb lawyers, one day will come where their dominance must be kept in check. Let’s hope it is not too far away.
