Mark Zuckerberg fairly obviously bought Instagram and WhatsApp to neutralize a perceived competitor. He isn’t doing that with TikTok, and the FTC’s monopolization trial is why.
The FTC is the organization that approved these mergers in the first place.
atrielienz@lemmy.world 1 week ago
They haven’t “won” until Meta has to pay damages. And even then, that win is hollow because not only will Meta try this again if the penalty isn’t high enough, but they’ll use the advantages of our weak leadership to further avoid any serious repercussions.
Ulrich@feddit.org 1 week ago
Anything short of forcing them to sell IG and WApp is a slap on the wrist.
stopdropandprole@lemmy.world 1 week ago
i think tik tok might be in a position where they must sell in order to continue serving content to American users:
after the TikTok CEO, Shou Chew, threw a big party for right wing influencers who helped Trump during his
bribe acceptance partyinauguration, Trump mysteriously halted the order (signed into law) to ban tik tok.from the article:
geeze, it’s almost like the tech oligarchs told Trump to pause the ban until they could negotiate a way to profit more from acquisition of TikTok (or a newly created US based subsidiary) than by outright banning users access to it, cold turkey.
atrielienz@lemmy.world 1 week ago
That’s true. But that doesn’t mean they don’t get to choose a better option than Facebook or Google or Amazon. Amazon at the very least isn’t a main competitor of theirs because Amazon doesn’t have a short form video product that’s mainstream. And they can afford to buy Tik Tok. So there’s that at least.