European Parliament members asked Mark Zuckerberg today
whether Facebook was a monopoly that potentially needed breaking up,
echoing concerns voiced in the United States. In a conference with
Zuckerberg, German MEP Manfred Weber asked whether the Facebook CEO
could name a single European alternative to his “empire,” which includes
apps like WhatsApp and Instagram in addition to Facebook. “I think it’s
time to discuss breaking up Facebook’s monopoly, because it’s already
too much power in only one hand,” said Weber. “So I ask you simply, and
that is my final question: can you convince me not to do so?”
The question was later picked up by Belgian MEP Guy
Verhofstadt. “You cannot convince him, because it’s nonsense actually,”
said Verhofstadt. “You have given the example of Twitter, you have given
the example, I think, of Google as some of your competitors. But it’s
like somebody who has a monopoly in making cars is saying ‘Look, I have a
monopoly in making cars, but it is no problem. You can take a plane,
you can take a train, you can even take your bike!’” He asked whether
Facebook would cooperate with European antitrust authorities to
determine whether the company was indeed a monopoly, and if it was,
whether Facebook would accept splitting off WhatsApp or Messenger to
remedy the problem.
The panel’s format let Zuckerberg selectively reply to
questions at the end of the session, and he didn’t address Verhofstadt’s
points. Instead, he broadly outlined how Facebook views “competition”
in various spaces. “We exist in a very competitive space where people
use a lot of different tools for communication,” said Zuckerberg. “From
where I sit, it feels like there are new competitors coming up every
day” in the messaging and social networking space. He also said that
Facebook didn’t hold an advertising monopoly because it only controlled 6
percent of the global advertising market. (It’s worth noting: this is
still a huge number.) And he argued that Facebook promoted
competition by making it easier for small businesses to reach larger
audiences — which is basically unrelated to the question of whether
Facebook itself is a monopoly.
As Weber noted, antitrust questions came up in
Zuckerberg’s earlier US congressional hearings. A coalition of activists
also just launched a “Freedom from Facebook” campaign that urges the US
Federal Trade Commission to split up Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and
Facebook Messenger. So while many people left today’s meeting with
their questions unanswered, the monopoly issue isn’t going away.
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