No better time than now to break facebook up into smaller parts…

‘Break Up Facebook’ — Antitrust Lawsuit Enjoys Broad Bipartisan Support

In a rare example of bipartisan cooperation in hyperpolarized times, Democrats and Republicans have joined together to support antitrust charges levelled against Facebook Wednesday by the Federal Trade Commission and an alliance of attorneys general from 48 states, a move that seeks to break up the company and reverse previously approved acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

forbes

How to Break Up Facebook

If the government gets its way, here’s what will happen next.

On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that the company had engaged in illegal anti-competitive behaviors to sustain a social media monopoly. Attorneys general from 46 states, D.C., and Guam—a coalition that conducted an investigation in conjunction with the FTC—filed a separate suit making similar antitrust claims. The FTC is partly seeking to force Facebook to sever its subsidiaries Instagram, which it acquired in 2012 for $1 billion, and WhatsApp, which it acquired in 2014 for $19 billion. The suit will likely be contested for years, and it’s far from a foregone conclusion that Facebook will actually have to break up. But if the FTC is ultimately successful, how would Facebook go about separating itself from Instagram and WhatsApp?

slate

The US government wants to break up Facebook. Good – it’s long overdue…

America broke up logging companies in the 1840s, Standard Oil in the 1910s, and AT&T in the 1980s. It’s time to take on big tech…

The evidence against Facebook seems overwhelming, with enforcers pointing to internal email conversations in which the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and his colleagues allegedly conspired to monopolize the social media space by buying rivals and stifling competitors. Proof of intent to violate antitrust law appears to be ample. Yet news articles covering the case describe it as “far from a slam dunk”, and competition law experts predict that enforcers will “face an uphill battle” in proving their claims.

the guardian