alt Hacker NewsRegulating FB earlier wouldn’t help much I think, it would grow just as fast with other, mostly US, markets and it would be just as powerful today.
Regulating FB earlier wouldn’t help much I think, it would grow just as fast with other, mostly US, markets and it would be just as powerful today.
I don't agree with this.
Facebook's power comes from how it gathered and monetised data, how it acquired rivals like Instagram and WhatsApp, and how it locked in network effects.
If regulators had blocked those acquisitions or enforced stricter antitrust and data privacy rules, there's a chance the social media landscape today would be more competitive. Politicians and regulators probably received some kind of incentive or didn't get it. They didn't see how dangerous Zuk's greedy algorithms would become. They thought it was just a social site. They had no idea what Facebook employees were building behind the scenes. By the time they realised, it was already too late.
China was the only one that acted. The US and EU looked the other way. If they'd stepped in back in 2009 with rules on privacy, neutrality, and transparency, today's internet could've been a lot more open and competitive.