test/expected/SLASHDOT/0102640274.header

   1 0Professor Who Coined Term 'Net Neutrality' Thinks It's Time To Break Up Facebook (theverge.com)        null/SLASHDOT/0102640274                70
   2 i  Thursday September 06, 2018 @11:30PM (BeauHD)
   3 i  from the easier-said-than-done dept.
   4 i
   5 i    [1]pgmrdlm shares a report from The Verge:
   6 i
   7 i    >  Best  known  for coining the phrase "net neutrality" and his
   8 i    book  The  Master  Switch:  The  Rise  and  Fall of Information
   9 i    Empires,  Wu  has  a  new  book  coming  out in November called
  10 i    [2]The  Curse  of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age . In
  11 i    it,   he   argues  compellingly  for  a  return  to  aggressive
  12 i    antitrust  enforcement  in the style of Teddy Roosevelt, saying
  13 i    that  Google,  Facebook,  Amazon, and other huge tech companies
  14 i    [3]are  a  threat  to democracy as they get bigger and bigger .
  15 i    "We  live in America, which has a strong and proud tradition of
  16 i    breaking   up  companies  that  are  too  big  for  inefficient
  17 i    reasons,"  Wu  told  me  on  this week's Vergecast. "We need to
  18 i    reverse  this  idea  that it's not an American tradition. We've
  19 i    broken up dozens of companies."
  20 i
  21 i    >
  22 i
  23 i    >  "I  think  if  you  took  a  hard look at the acquisition of
  24 i    WhatsApp  and Instagram, the argument that the effects of those
  25 i    acquisitions  have  been anticompetitive would be easy to prove
  26 i    for  a number of reasons," says Wu. And breaking up the company
  27 i    wouldn't  be  hard,  he  says.  "What would be the harm? You'll
  28 i    have  three competitors. It's not 'Oh my god, if you get rid of
  29 i    WhatsApp  and  Instagram,  well then the whole world's going to
  30 i    fall  apart.'  It  would  be  like  'Okay,  now  you  have some
  31 i    companies  actually  trying  to  offer  you  an  alternative to
  32 i    Facebook.'"   Breaking   up   Facebook  (and  other  huge  tech
  33 i    companies  like  Google  and  Amazon) could be simple under the
  34 i    current  law,  suggests  Wu.  But it could also lead to a major
  35 i    rethinking  of  how  antitrust law should work in a world where
  36 i    the  giant  platform  companies  give  their  products away for
  37 i    free,  and the ability for the government to restrict corporate
  38 i    power  seems  to be diminishing by the day. And it demands that
  39 i    we  all  think  seriously  about  the  conditions  that  create
  40 i    innovation.  "I  think  everyone's  steering  way away from the
  41 i    monopolies,  and  I  think  it's hurting innovation in the tech
  42 i    sector," says Wu.
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  46 i    [1] https://slashdot.org/~pgmrdlm
  47 i
  48 i    [2] https://www.amazon.com/Curse-Bigness-Antitrust-New-Gilded/-
  49 i    dp/0999745468
  50 i
  51 i    [3] https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/4/17816572/tim-wu-facebook-
  52 i    regulation-interview-curse-of-bigness-antitrust
  53 i