Last Christmas For Facebook
After years of devolving control of my Facebook page to the ever patient Nicole, it’s taken me since last Christmas to get to grips with how it actually works. I mainly use it to follow people who live in VW Camper Vans, old fellas that lift weights and anything to do with Bewdley and Kidderminster. It’s back in the weave of my life and very useful.
Yet since Facebook feels like a giant digital Meccano set, with bolted on packages that make it hard to see how it all works. Every time they buy a company, there are new things it can do. It’s quite bewildering sometimes. And it has led to great concern about monopolistic behaviour.
The recent decision to merge data between Facebook (original) and the acquired Instagram and WhatsApp has pushed the US Federal Trade Commission to file an antitrust suit against the company. The FTC argue that the merger represents a monopoly and that company should divest itself of WhatsApp and Instagram. The company’s response was waspish. They attacked the FTC for returning to a deal it had already approved, calling it “revisionist history.”
Does Facebook hold a monopoly on social networking? Some have suggested that was the company’s intention when it purchased Instagram, and cited Mark Zuckerberg’s own words to justify their claim. It’s been argued many times that they’ve been anticompetitive towards their rivlas.
I’ll be interested to see how this all pans out in 2021, not least because I now run a small company and am thinking of investing in digital products using the Facebook platform. It’s perilous being a tiny player in a market where there is only one dominant provider but then again, it’s perilous not knowing what changes a regulator might make to a market. It’s a steep learning curve for a former politician!
Talking of perilous behaviour
“If you cross Murdoch its like having an entire division of the SS dropping in on you” was a quote attributed to a former Murdoch employee by former Australian PM Kevin Rudd, in this remarkable interview between Kevin, Hugh Grant and Professor Steve Barnett last night.
If you can cope with watching me speak for four and a bit minutes, here is my first speech in the House of Lords. I hoped to describe Wyre Forest and big up Bewdley Civic Society, but debate time was cut. I’ll find another opportunity to do this in the new year.