Finally an antitrust case against Facebook is coming soon! Let’s revisit some juicy highlights from the @davidcicilline House Judiciary Big Tech report to see why it’s long overdue. https://twitter.com/katielpaul/status/1334281812722401281

First - monopoly power. Facebook’s market share is huge, according to its own documents. https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/competition_in_digital_markets.pdf

I explained in this article from last year why Facebook is in indeed a monopoly even though other social media companies exist. (I dig in deeper on this in my book). https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/02/perspectives/big-tech-facebook-google-amazon-microsoft-antitrust/index.html

Back to the House report, Facebook maintains its monopoly power not purely by competing based on merit, but instead by buying up competitive threats, like Instagram and WhatsApp.

Internal docs showed Zuckerberg bought Instagram to eliminate a competitor and pursued a strategy of buying up any startups that challenged Facebook’s monopoly power, using apps like Onavo to surveil emerging competitors.

Internal Facebook docs show the WhatsApp acquisition was the same story - violating the Clayton Act, which prohibits mergers that may lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly, & the Sherman Act, which prohibits the maintenance of monopoly power through exclusionary conduct

Facebook also maintained its monopoly power by cutting off access to data for companies it deems competitors. In antitrust law, this is called a discriminatory refusal to deal, and it also violates the Sherman Act.

Facebook’s monopoly power is not just dangerous for our democracy, it also has been maintained and grown by FB breaking the antitrust laws. I can’t wait to see the State AGs’ complaint!