She understands the economics of what's going on in this country. She understands the power dynamics.

Elizabeth Warren knows how to attack the root of the problems. And one of those roots is the return of monopolies.

BREAK THEM UP!!!

Go Warren!!!

the top 4 at the moment are:

$840 million - microsoft
$809 million - apple
$795 million - alphabet (google)
$790 million - amazon

and then the fifth largest:

$488 million - berkshire hathaway
with companies like johnson & johnson, facebook, and exxonmobil not far behind.

that's a huge gap. something seems very wrong about that.

From Amazon. There are certainly alternatives to Amazon, but it is so darned efficient. Facebook I don’t even use or get why people consider it essential. There are other search engines and email as well.

as long as it was black.

On Facebook

I'm so old I remember very well service before, the breakup and all of that. You had NO choice.

You don't have to use Facebook. It's not the only player by far to keep in touch with people.

You don't have to use Google, in fact, many use other browsers.

You don't have to buy shit on Amazon. There are local people that sell things you need. There are millions of other online retailers.

This is kinda pfffffft of Warren, in my opinion. We don't need to break up companies that do not have true monopolies, we just have to tax the crap out of them. Time for them to pay up.

... a living wage through higher minimum wages.

Facebook and Google are free to their users, unlike Ma Bell.

Last year we raised about 4% of our operating budget through facebook fundraisers with a total effort of perhaps two hours--and that includes thanking donors.

this is a waste of time..

we got bought out by a big tech company, they basically bought our technology and laid us off..

Reversing it’s acquisition of Instagram would break it’s stranglehold on social networks - and be popular with young people.

It has a stranglehold in social media and is as much a threat to democracy as big banks. 2016 - remember?

Do you break up Facebook's user base? Put half of the members in a conservative pile, the other half in a liberal pile?

Sorry... breaking up Facebook is not really a solution for the problem you describe. The problem isn't that Facebook is too big, it is that people are too gullible. Perhaps invest more in education and teach critical thinking, so dumb memes don't control our national dialogue.

Facebook has two billion users. People try to quit but are drawn back.

Shall we break them up as well?

Does DU sell information about its users to the GOP? Did DU help tilt the 2016 GE towards Trump. FB is too big to be ignored.

Which people go where?

Which groups of people get to talk to other groups of people?

Which individuals get excluded?

Whose speech do you limit?

The way I see it - breaking them up runs counter to the idea of free speech.

I agree that Facebook has many fundamental problems, but the knee-jerk solution of "break them up" is not the answer. We need to protect people's privacy, prevent Facebook from selling data to the highest bidder, limit advertising, make it less addictive, and so on...

which FB acquired in 2012 by demerging them. It leaves FB with it’s 2billion user base in tact, that’s true, but establishes an alternative social media platform for those who object to or do not trust the level of surveillance FB employees.

I am sorry but it's not the way it works. I have 2 instagram accounts and 3 facebooks. And google? I have like 20, what about Microsoft? What about snapchat? And any emerging social media? What about reddit? It's time to stop letting companies merge and become bigger and bigger. Nothing is bigger than google, but it was it's youtube merger that I think was the biggest grab. The point is, the cell phone companies continue to eat each other. There needs to be more regulation, but splitting things the way you mention makes absolutely 0 sense.

You keep your Instagram accounts but they are owned by another company. FB doedn’t Share the advertising across platforms, and does not share information either. FB has announced they want to Instagram FB messenger and Whatsapp into a single service.

Google knows more than FB (usually) but does not sell that info to political parties.
Neither Snapchat or Reddit mine user behaviour at the micro level FB does.

Really no one has to use Facebook or even use social media. It’s a kind of a sickness. I’ve never understood the attraction

Get out of the social media and search engine business and worry about the banks

Facebook/Google surveillance capitalism is seriously bad news.

She is inspiring and has vital ideals to implement. She's on Ari Melber and is stressing enforcing anti-trust laws.

Go Elizabeth!

Shoshanna Zuboff
If I hadnt just listened to this I couldn’t have agreed without Warren on this, fan though I am.

It creates million of little Fox News Ckannels each tailored to individual prejudices. It’s bad news.

Bernie and EW both are talking about how much CEOs make and splitting up Amazon/etc. but the top issues for Americans seem to be removing trump, voting rights/electoral reform, healthcare, climate change, etc.

It’s important. It’s too big to be ignored.

a monopoly is silly, to me. I don't even use it. And the idiots who believe everything they read on FB will just find another shady platform.

A more useful cause would be legislation to protect our DNA in the wake of all the ancestry companies. WAY more important, IMO.

can be broken up under existing ant-trust legislation, unwinding earlier acquisitions. Send it to the DOJ. I presume (as always) she has done her homework.

so when does being successful become less important than the size of company? Sounds like ssour grapes....

Last edited Fri Mar 8, 2019, 08:44 PM - Edit history (1)

It’s Facebook. Amazon would have to divest Wholefoods but that’s it.

They'd need to split off their technology company side, ala kindle/echo, etc

THey also have that little old AWS side business that makes a little bit of money.

so you wont see many small businesses supporting this either.

I dont trust politicians, even Warren to mess with large swaths of the economy without a sound reason. None of the companies she is singling out have any monopoly. You can buy stuff without using Amazon, use other search engines than google and choose not to use facebook. Unlike the older industries like manufacturing or the likes which often has an history of past monopolies and robber barons, the bulk of the high tech sector was started by successful young people who got started on their own.

Bezos was selling used books, Gates started in his garage, Elon musk is an immigrant who started from scratch, etc... I am all for regulating businesses to create a fair playing field and look out for the employees and consumers, not for breaking them up out of spite.

And it’s not Amazon she’s after - they would only have to divest WholeFoods, it’s Facebook.

If it was contrary to existing anti-trust laws, why not enforce the law?

enforce the law. Simple as that.

knowlege of the Act nor the regulations that guide it's enforcement.

Google tells me: 'The Sherman Antitrust Act was not an effective law. ... This law basically made it illegal for trusts to form. However, the enforcement of this law was left to the court system. Since the legislation was vaguely worded, the courts often did not act to break up the trusts.'

Thanks for pushing me to get on top of competition law

obscure than illuminate.

Well you’ve got the legislation, the regulations, the court rulings, the re-rulations, the next set of judgments ...

Yeah, you can buy stuff without using Amazon. But if you use the internet, it's hard avoid AWS. Huge swaths of the internet are disrupted when there's an outage at AWS. Guess what the A stands for?

https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2017/03/02/aws-outage-that-broke-the-internet-caused-by-mistyped-command

Last edited Sat Mar 9, 2019, 12:53 AM - Edit history (1)

This is very interesting proposal. Under current antitrust rules, consumers can sue unless there are increased prices. This proposal gets around this limitation.

She is just casting for votes now. Again.

This is why she will never be nominee. The vast Democratic business community sees her as a populist shill.

Warren simply has ghastly instincts. Nobody will care what her rationale is. They'll hear a Democrat taking away their Google, their Amazon and their Facebook and use it to bolster a stereotyped fear that Democrats want to control everything via government.

Elizabeth Warren acts on impulse and has no clue how it plays with the public at large. There is quite a bit of danger along those lines among politicians from heavily blue states.

is Act on impulse. If you had followed her career, you would know that.

I love the great ideas from Senator Warren from the wealth tax to this. Amazon destroys small businesses with price wars knowing that they will still make money with Amazon Web Services. Facebook and Google have elevated right-wing zealots on their platforms and fake news with "promises" that they'll change. Like a deadbet partner who beats their partner and claims that they see the light everytime they're in trouble.

I don't think this will do it. She's a strong Senator and a weak Presidential candidate. Someone change my mind.

What does seem sincere, however, is Zuckerberg’s newfound commitment to messaging. He wants Facebook to dominate private online communication to the same degree that it dominates what we call social networking today.

When people pull out their phone to text their mother, or plan a party with a group of friends, Zuckerberg wants them to do that on WhatsApp, Messenger, or Instagram Direct—all of which will work with each other, and eventually with standard SMS systems, too. And in the long run, he wants them to use those platforms for much more than texting and chatting. The ultimate vision is something akin to WeChat, the Chinese super-app that people use for everything from messaging to sharing videos to making appointments, reviewing restaurants, and hailing rides.

nessengers as anti-competitive.

It's driving box stores out of business.