Would regulation cement Facebook’s market power? It’s unlikely
As Facebook squirms under the most intense scrutiny of its life, Catherine de Fontenay senses a gap appearing in the once-impenetrable social media monopoly in this crossposting from The Conversation.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced a four-hour grilling from the US Senate Commerce and Judiciary panels yesterday in response to a number of revelations – that Russian operatives had targeted Facebook users to influence the US election, that Cambridge Analytica had gained personal information on 87 million users, and that “malicious actors” (Facebook’s words) were able to identify and collect data on most of its 2.2 billion users.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before US senators in Washington, DC on April 10, 2018. Michael Reynolds/EPA
Senator Lindsay Graham raised pointed questions about Facebook’s monopoly power. Graham pointed to the lack of competitors to Facebook in the social media space, and Facebook’s purchase of Instagram – its main competitor. Graham was asking whether the forces of competition were enough to keep Facebook from misbehaving.
