Conservative FTC Commissioners are PROTECTING Facebook from any break-up... !!??!! This is truly outrageous -- almost unimaginable
Lina Khan Leads the Government's New Attempt to Break Up Facebook - by Matt Stoller - BIG by Matt Stoller (substack.com)
Republican Commissioners are PROTECTING Facebook from break-up !!??
The vote among the five commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission was 3-2, as both Republican Commissioners, Noah Phillips and Christine Wilson, voted against bringing it.
One major risk here is the Republican Party establishment. For a few years, populists made headway there; conservative legal titan Clarence Thomas came out against Google’s power, and Trump himself was able to bring antitrust suits against Google and Facebook (even though he was very good for big tech). But now, there’s a counter-attack, and libertarians like Jim Jordan, if they gain more power, will try to destroy the FTC as an institution in order to protect dominant firms, using culture war arguments as a shield. That battle, which is taking place on the right, continues.
In a sane world, the remarkable allegations in these complaints would be enough to have Zuckerberg put in jail and Facebook restructured. Instead, a fearful judge forced the FTC to do a bunch more homework before even being able to bring Facebook to trial. We do not have a coherent state that can govern in any meaningful way, and not just in America, but across the West. By contrast, the Chinese government made a decision to restructure its tech sector, and within two years, it has basically done that. That’s not because the Chinese government is authoritarian, but because Chinese leaders understand, as Americans and Europeans used to, what it means to have a state.
Just in -- truly unbelievable:
Conservative FTC Commissioners are PROTECTING Facebook from any break-up... !!??!! This is truly outrageous -- almost unimaginable
Lina Khan Leads the Government's New Attempt to Break Up Facebook - by Matt Stoller - BIG by Matt Stoller (substack.com)
Republican Commissioners are PROTECTING Facebook from break-up !!??
The vote among the five commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission was 3-2, as both Republican Commissioners, Noah Phillips and Christine Wilson, voted against bringing it.
One major risk here is the Republican Party establishment. For a few years, populists made headway there; conservative legal titan Clarence Thomas came out against Google’s power, and Trump himself was able to bring antitrust suits against Google and Facebook (even though he was very good for big tech). But now, there’s a counter-attack, and libertarians like Jim Jordan, if they gain more power, will try to destroy the FTC as an institution in order to protect dominant firms, using culture war arguments as a shield. That battle, which is taking place on the right, continues.
In a sane world, the remarkable allegations in these complaints would be enough to have Zuckerberg put in jail and Facebook restructured. Instead, a fearful judge forced the FTC to do a bunch more homework before even being able to bring Facebook to trial. We do not have a coherent state that can govern in any meaningful way, and not just in America, but across the West. By contrast, the Chinese government made a decision to restructure its tech sector, and within two years, it has basically done that. That’s not because the Chinese government is authoritarian, but because Chinese leaders understand, as Americans and Europeans used to, what it means to have a state.