Over the past couple of weeks, the Facebook war plan to resist regulation has become clear: become too big, too integrated and too influential to be broken up by regulation or politics.
Facebook (or FACEBOOK as it has loudly rebranded itself) showed its hand in a leaked transcript of comments by CEO Zuckerberg in a mid-year meeting: “If someone’s going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat and you fight.”
Zuckerberg was talking specifically about the policy plans of Democrat presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren, but his comments happened to coincide with Australia’s ACCC report on digital platforms. The ACCC warned that both Facebook and Google were already too big, should be prevented from getting bigger and should be continually monitored through a designated unit of the commission. (The government said it would respond to the report by this month.)
It’s easy to shrug off this report. After all, as we are often cautioned, what can Australia do on its own? But it was a powerful report that fed into global kick-back from both regulators and politicians.
Facebook’s search for political influence is like that of any large corporation under threat: beef up lobbying infrastructure (including here in Australia); use money and networks to make (or support) friends in politics; exempt politicians from the impact of their decisions.
This has raised more than the odd eyebrow, particularly given an apparent Republican lean. Late last week, for example, Facebook was lead sponsor of the right-wing Federalist Society dinner with Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh; who, coincidentally, will be a key vote on any Supreme Court decision on Facebook’s break up — a legal challenge already foreshadowed by Zuckerberg.
Further down the Facebook food chain, head of news partnerships Campbell Brown has been reported for her role in co-founding non-profit education news site The 74, which has recently been sharply critical of Warren’s support for public education. One article described her as “the second coming of Karl Marx”.
At the same time, Facebook has sought to pacify its traditional media critics with the introduction of a news tab on its platform, agreeing to pay “millions” for stories from participating publishers such as News Corp.
Its promise of a light touch on political speech — designed to pacify US conservative critics — has had its first real world run in this weekend’s Sri Lankan presidential elections. The campaign of winning candidate Gotabaya Rajapakse reportedly used photographs to suggest that “Muslim extremists” had destroyed a Buddhist site. Facebook’s designated fact-checker had already deemed these images false. It adds to Facebook’s long struggle with anti-Muslim propaganda in south Asia.
Facebook’s “too big to break” strategy is seemingly being hurried through to present a fait accompli to any post-2020 hostile US administration. The strategy seem to both integrate the company’s platforms to complicate separation and to push beyond advertising service to financial transactions.
The first public step to integration came in August, with the company rebranding as “Instagram by Facebook” and “WhatsApp by Facebook”, despite the risk inherent in tagging a cool brand (such as Instagram) with an uncool brand (such as, well, Facebook). The integration of the messaging facilities of WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram is advancing, with promised end-to-end encryption across all devices. Expect some announcement in early 2020.
The shift into financial transactions would add a key third tranche to the platform, on top of the news feed and messaging, along the lines of China’s WeChat. It has the potential to turbo-charge the company’s scale in its competition with Amazon and Google.
Last week, the company quietly announced the roll-out of Facebook Pay in the US, enabling users to link their credit card or bank account to Facebook to pay expenses through any of the Facebook platforms. It follows a trial of WhatsApp Pay over the past year in India. (This is separate to Facebook’s proposed blockchain currency, Libra, which seems to have hit a wall with the withdrawal of major financial institutions.)
It’s not clear when these new Facebook options will be available in Australia. But the company’s imperative to move fast suggests both will come here sooner rather than later, perhaps waiting only on the government’s response to the ACCC report.
Charge a fee or prosecute copyright violations… Google and Farcebook don’t create journalistic content, they just copy and paste, or facilitate others to do so… If the copyright owners forbade the sharing of their content on these platforms, it would go a long way to starving the beast…
Google and Farcebook want eyes on their sites, and they need content to do so… the sad thing is, that the people who are harmed by these digital giants don’t realise they are enabling their behaviour, and circuitously paying them to push ads and mind control behaviour onto themselves… Facebook will always be free is the mantra, because they have their hand in your wallet in so many other ways…
The all-in-one Chinese model must be the aspiration for Zuckerberg and his ilk… bigger than any bank, more powerful than any state, with more influence than any media organisation… so much damage can and will be done to society and democracy before they eventually implode… firm and definite action needs to be taken against these behemoths, their market reach, their cross-platform and cross-sector integration, their stock market position etc.
The East India Company was also ‘too big to break’. Until the Indian Rebellion of 1957 and the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act 1873.
My test is – what value does Facebook ( or any company) add to the Australian Community. As far as I can see very little in employment , taxation , improving standards , educating , health etc. It does not care about the Community it operates in and should be treated as such. Certainly on any criteria it is not too big to break.
Exactly Bill, though I reiterate my comment yesterday that many niche small businesses use its analytics and other features to enhance their operations.
The best bargaining chip is tax. Australia could lead the way with Big Tech requiring all transactions here to go through an Australian domiciled subsidiary paying a fixed percentage turnover tax on top of gst.
It might just be time for individuals who object to the tactics used by Facebook / Zuckerberg, its obvious support of right wing organisations and its preparedness to run false and misleading advertismeents to BOYCOTT Facebook, shut down their accounts and find another way to live. That would hurt Zuckerberg in the only way that he seems to respond to, diminish his business and do it through choice rather than relying on government intervention.
The Russian government, loves Face Book, it won them the election and put the Trumpster in power!
What’s not to like about that,eh!
Facebook is still refusing to take down the false advertising regarding the Death tax, in Australia.
Angela Merkel, had no problem with Face Book, Google and snap chat, in Germany, she told them to moderate their sites and remove false, misleading, violent and defamatory content within 20 minutes from posting or she would fine Face Book and friends, fines, that would make their eyes water and threaten the existence of the platform itself, in Germany.
Face Book hired 2000 people and all barred content is gone in under 10 minutes. What is wrong with us?
Obviously, we do not have the cahooners that “Muta or Grandmother in English” has.