TechCentralTechCentral
    Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentral TechCentral
    NEWSLETTER
    • News

      Floods blamed as gov’t falls behind in set-top box roll-out

      24 June 2022

      Vumacam announces big Jo’burg expansion drive

      24 June 2022

      Eskom crisis spirals: stage-4 power cuts this weekend

      24 June 2022

      Illegal strike at Eskom could make load shedding worse

      24 June 2022

      State capture probe ends but South Africa remains ‘broken’ by corruption

      23 June 2022
    • World

      Amazon has a plan to make Alexa mimic anyone’s voice

      24 June 2022

      Apple, Android phones hacked by Italian spyware

      24 June 2022

      Zendesk nears buyout deal with private equity firms

      24 June 2022

      Crypto crash survivors could become ‘tomorrow’s Amazons’

      23 June 2022

      Tether to launch a stablecoin tied to the British pound

      22 June 2022
    • In-depth

      The great crypto crash: the fallout, and what happens next

      22 June 2022

      Goodbye, Internet Explorer – you really won’t be missed

      19 June 2022

      Oracle’s database dominance threatened by rise of cloud-first rivals

      13 June 2022

      Everything Apple announced at WWDC – in less than 500 words

      7 June 2022

      Sheryl Sandberg’s ad empire leaves a complicated legacy

      2 June 2022
    • Podcasts

      How your organisation can triage its information security risk

      22 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E06 – ‘Apple Silicon’

      15 June 2022

      The youth might just save us

      15 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E05 – ‘Nvidia: The Green Goblin’

      8 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E04 – ‘The story of Intel – part 2’

      1 June 2022
    • Opinion

      Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

      21 June 2022

      Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

      13 June 2022

      A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

      19 May 2022

      From spectrum to roads, why fixing SA’s problems is an uphill battle

      19 April 2022

      How AI is being deployed in the fight against cybercriminals

      8 April 2022
    • Company Hubs
      • 1-grid
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Amplitude
      • Atvance Intellect
      • Axiz
      • BOATech
      • CallMiner
      • Digital Generation
      • E4
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • IBM
      • Kyocera Document Solutions
      • Microsoft
      • Nutanix
      • One Trust
      • Pinnacle
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Tarsus on Demand
      • Videri Digital
      • Zendesk
    • Sections
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Motoring and transport
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home»World»Growing calls for US government to break up Facebook

    Growing calls for US government to break up Facebook

    World By Agency Staff9 July 2018
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email

    The top US communications union is joining a coalition calling for the Federal Trade Commission to break up Facebook, as the social media company faces growing government scrutiny and public pressure.

    “We should all be deeply concerned by Facebook’s power over our lives and democracy,” said Brian Thorn, a researcher for the 700 000-member Communications Workers of America, the newest member of the Freedom From Facebook coalition. For the FTC not to end Facebook’s monopoly and impose stronger rules on privacy “would be unfair to the American people, our privacy, and our democracy”, Thorn said in an e-mail.

    Facebook disclosed 2 July that it’s cooperating with probes by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation on how political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica obtained personal information from as many as 87 million of the site’s users without their consent.

    We hope to increase that public pressure around it, and I’m fairly optimistic that there is an appetite for making some progress there

    The FTC, the department of justice and some state regulators were already probing the matter, which prompted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before the US congress in April. Facebook also faces calls for regulation from many lawmakers and the public over the privacy issue, Russian efforts to manipulate the 2016 presidential election and the spread of false information on the platform.

    Facebook declined to comment on the union’s move.

    CWA’s members believe the union should be a powerful voice in the debate over privacy and monopoly at Facebook, given its expertise in telecommunications and knowledge of how to influence the regulatory process, Beth Allen, the union’s communications director, said in an interview.

    “There’s a lot of public pressure around this issue,” Allen said. “We hope to increase that public pressure around it, and I’m fairly optimistic that there is an appetite for making some progress there.”

    Facebook is “a whole new kind of entity that I think regulators are struggling to keep up with”, Allen said, citing its wide-ranging businesses, including its separate messaging app, Instagram photo-sharing service and Internet service abroad.

    ‘Stiff competition’

    The company has said it faces stiff competition, particularly from other communication apps, and points out that its main social network, with more than two billion users worldwide, is free and popular.

    Sarah Miller, Freedom From Facebook’s director, said the addition of the union showed the group of privacy and anti-monopoly activists is gaining momentum.

    “It’s a really important signal that we’re having more and more groups become interested in this set of solutions,” she said. CWA will help develop the coalition’s evolving strategy, Miller added.

    The union joins groups including MoveOn and the Open Markets Institute in Freedom From Facebook. The anti-Facebook coalition plans to urge members to participate in upcoming public hearings of the FTC, Miller said. The agency’s chairman, Joe Simons, has said the question of whether tech giants such as Facebook, Amazon.com and Google are undermining competition will be a priority of the hearings.  — Reported by Josh Eidelson and Ben Brody, (c) 2018 Bloomberg LP

    Brian Thorn Facebook top
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleSamsung to open world’s largest smartphone factory
    Next Article McKinsey ‘sorry’ for overcharging Eskom

    Related Posts

    Amazon has a plan to make Alexa mimic anyone’s voice

    24 June 2022

    Apple, Android phones hacked by Italian spyware

    24 June 2022

    Zendesk nears buyout deal with private equity firms

    24 June 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    Watch | Telviva One: adapting to the requirements of business

    24 June 2022

    Huawei P50 now available for pre-order in South Africa

    23 June 2022

    Calabrio paves way for SA’s cloud contact centre WFO journey alongside AWS

    23 June 2022
    Opinion

    Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

    21 June 2022

    Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

    13 June 2022

    A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

    19 May 2022

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2022 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.