BY CREIGHTON LEWIS
STAFF WRITER
At its inception, Facebook had good intentions. It gave way to person-to-person communication where people would upload photos and share information about their lives with the world. It ensured transparency by making sure people couldn’t pretend to be someone they weren’t and it was started in 2004 by Harvard students. It was originally created for them alone, but as the word spread to students at other prestigious universities, its popularity and usage snowballed. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, there were over one billion users as of 2012.
However, earlier this week, the attorney generals from over forty states, as well as the Federal Trade Commission, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, claiming the social media platform was a monopoly because it stifled competition to ensure it’s own superiority over the internet. Indeed, Facebook has bought Snapchat, Whatsapp, Instagram, Glancee, Eyegroove, and Vine to expand its control over how we express ourselves by either integrating them or buying them and shutting them down entirely afterwards.
In an article from CNN, they were investigating Facebook for anticompetitive practices and stated, “For nearly a decade, Facebook has used its dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals and snuff out competition….By using its vast troves of data and money, Facebook has squashed or hindered what the company perceived to be potential threats.” And, according to an article written by Daily Mail, there’s a well-documented amount of information about Facebook’s goals; when Facebook bought Whatsapp in 2014, the staff themself was “shocked and horrified,” and the lawsuit says that the only rationale was to get rid of the threat. And, after it was acquired, they changed the privacy services and merged them with their preexisting operations.
Despite this well-documented evidence given by company insiders, some argue the case isn’t strong enough. Because Snapchat, Whatsapp, and Instagram were bought years ago, it’s difficult to know how well it’ll play out. The overarching goal? Divvy up Facebook. Break apart apps bought from competitors and return them to their rightful owners, or prevent Facebook from buying any other companies entirely. Mark Zuckerburg will likely argue that if Facebook didn’t buy the company, then other companies like Microsoft or Twitter would have; calling Facebook “anti-competitive” is inaccurate. However, given the numerous companies he’s paid twice the worth for, (he bought Instagram for $1 billion dollars at a time when it was only worth 500 million) things aren’t looking good.
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