Mark Zuckerberg will jump to the most analyzed conference call of his life on Wednesday to testify, by video, before the Judicial Subcommittee of the Chamber of Defense of Competition. The committee has been investigating for more than a year the potentially monopolistic practices of tech giants, and the CEO of Facebook, who will testify alongside Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who will also testify on Wednesday, has some explaining what to do.
Zuckerberg seems to have decided on an explanation, albeit stupid.
According to BloombergThe Facebook CEO plans to argue that any effort to hold the company accountable for possible antitrust violations would be flawed, as it would give China a market advantage. “Zuckerberg plans to portray his company as an American success story in an unpredictable and competitive marketplace, now threatened by the rise of Chinese social media applications worldwide,” the report read.
How Bloomberg points out, Zuckerberg has made this argument in the past, warning Congress in 2019 that “China is moving fast to launch a similar idea in the coming months,” speaking of a cryptocurrency proposed by Facebook, and that “if the United States does not innovate , our financial leadership is not guaranteed. “
Wednesday’s hearing comes as Facebook faces intense criticism for its role in spreading hate speech and disinformation. After the platform allowed President Trump to post on how “thugs” protesting George Floyd’s death should be shot, defense groups sparked a massive advertising boycott that included corporate giants like Coca-Cola and Unilever . While doing so, Zuckerberg responded with major cosmetic changes and vague promises to improve. Meanwhile, an audit found that Facebook’s policy practices that allow hate speech constitute a “setback for civil rights,” and employees complained that the company ignored the racial bias investigation.
Lawmakers on Wednesday could criticize Zuckerberg on the role of his platform in spreading hate speech and misinformation, but the audience will focus on possible antitrust violations. For Facebook, this includes his track record of acquiring potential competitors like Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as how he’s intimidated others, including Vine, that Facebook banned allowing its users to connect with their Facebook friends. Bloomberg He notes that Zuckerberg will likely try to claim that Facebook is largely responsible for the success of Instagram and WhatsApp, and that it was not simply the purchase of companies that threatened their dominance of the market.
It is unclear to what extent Zuckerberg will consider the idea that building Facebook with good old-fashioned American elbow grease should give him the right to prevent others from doing the same with his companies, but they are unlikely to retain much water with the subcommittee. antitrust. Although Chinese competitors can operate without restrictions, the laws that Congress is trying to maintain were implemented for some reason. A free and fair market based on competition, not monopoly rule, is at the center of the promise of the American company, even if those ideals have not always been put into practice. The absence of these principles, plus the massive cronyism between heads of state-owned companies and government officials, is at the core of what makes China a state economy.
