> just one presidential hopeful — Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren — uses domain-based message authentication, reporting, and conformance policy — or DMARC.
Another reason that Warren is my favorite of the democratic candidate right now. It's telling that the candidate with the most tech savvy is also the one proposing to break up the FAANGs for antitrust abuses.
I'm not at all clear what a break up means. How do you break up a monolithic single platform like Facebook? Maybe spin off the messaging stuff but who cares about that? Google is tricky too, you could separate ad-driven search from everything else, but then the everything else bits would just die. How would that benefit users?
Basically picking off bits of the edges of these services is just pointless, but splitting up the core service also seems crazy. It's like splitting up a car company by separating out the bit that makes the engines from the bit that makes the chassis.
I can see it with Amazon splitting AWS from the store, but in that case both would just do fine thank you very much. Again, I'm not seeing any material benefits to anybody. I suppose it's possible profits from the store would be prevented from subsidising AWS, which might benefit competition. This is the only one that makes a lick of sense but it's not really a big problem to fix IMHO.
So what are the actual proposals, or are they just vague pontificating at this stage?
> I'm not at all clear what a break up means. How do you break up a monolithic single platform like Facebook? Maybe spin off the messaging stuff but who cares about that?
Facebook's platform is already pretty well broken up: you have IG, WhatsApp, the core News Feed, Messenger.
Warren's argument isn't so much that breaking the big tech companies up would benefit consumers in itself, but that breaking them up would enable competing services to emerge (in the same way, she argues, that breaking up Microsoft enabled Facebook and Google to emerge).
It's easy to forget now but in 1998 Windows was pushing Active Desktop pretty hard and MSFT were making a big play to make the Internet something which you consumed via the Windows desktop and via Microsoft owned products.
It's not clear that competition neccesarily _would_ emerge from more constraints on large tech companies, but it's probably true that Facebook making a "WeChat" type play would not be a good thing for the Open Web or competition in any way.
> (in the same way, she argues, that breaking up Microsoft enabled Facebook and Google to emerge).
Is this a reference to the consent decree? Microsoft wasn't actually broken up, not that I recall. Nor did the consent decree permit Google to emerge - it was emerging anyway, and before the consent decree.
Facebook tried for years to compete with Snapchat and failed. Competition is obviously beneficial for substitute goods, but I don't think tech is there.
How is the amalgamation of Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook.com, Facebook Messenger, Oculus, etc. a "monolithic single platform"?
I don't quite understand how you've come to your "who cares about that?"/"How would that benefit users?" stance. If you're genuinely curious about how preventing monopolies can benefit consumers/users, and not just being rhetorical, I suggest:
The problem with large tech markets is that they control every aspect of a single industry in of themselves, which allows them to define and change the market to suit themselves best. In the shortrun this is good for the user as Facebook can offer instagram, whatsapp, facebook, messenger, etc. for free- a price that competitors cannot beat with all those features at once.
On the other hand, now Facebook has all of our data and the bar to enter the market to compete with facebook also must apply to all the corollary markets- in other words, there's no qay to have equivalent services without paying the high cost Facebook demands (which is massive user data).
This is similar to when an oil company purchases the means to refine and produce the oil. So an ewuivalent separation would be breaking up the highly integratedness of all to benefit the market by increasing competition on every level of Facebook monolith.
Yes, infact, much of the arguments here is the arguments made when one broke up Standard Oil for example. "But how will this benefit the consumer" is one the biggest arguments against the breaking up Standard Oil.
The obvious targets are Instagram and WhatsApp, followed by splitting out the ad network, and any other functionality where Facebook unfairly competes with their customers and locks out competition.
WhatsApp & Instagram should be split out not only due to anti-competition, but for the protection of the general public. WhatsApp's founder(s?) walked away from almost $1bn because they couldn't look themselves in the mirror and keep working for Zucky after his blatant lies about not violating peoples' privacy with WhatsApp. That alone warrants investigation, since Money is the only thing Americans care about.
It's not that I'm a fan of Facebook, my usage of it is intentionally minimal and as a company they're appalling, but splitting off WhatsApp would make zero practical difference to the main harms they are perpetrating. It's like splitting off the confectionary stand at an oil company's gas stations. There might be some marginal benefits, sure, but it's not in any way addressing the material issues.
I really like Warren for her anti-trust message and her record of acting on behalf of consumers but I just can't get past a couple deal breakers that are a non-negotiable part of the DNC platform that she has to act toward as part of being a democrat senator and serious democratic presidential candidate. I wish politicians weren't so dependent on the national parties for funding their election campaigns. I would gladly vote for pre-senator Warren.
I think it would help if you named your dealbreakers. Imagine if in an OS discussion you said that you like Linux but won’t adopt it due to a couple of unspecified dealbreakers and just left it at that. Most people here would probably consider it borderline FUD.
“There is a huge difference between the guns of a sportsman or homeowner and high-powered assault weapons with 100-cartridge magazines, I grew up around guns and gun owners, and I will work to protect the rights of law-abiding citizens. But the law must reflect the reality that, in the wrong hands, guns can be used for violent crimes, disrupting communities and making families and neighborhoods less safe.” - Elizabeth Warren [1]
This seems like a perfectly reasonable thing for someone to say about gun control. It doesn't sound like she is trying to criminalize your possessions unless you already have a criminal record and/or possess a tool of mass murder. Although I guess there is potential her position has changed since that was from her Senate run in 2012. I couldn't find anything specific about gun control yet on her 2020 site.
Of course they can make a statement that makes it sound reasonable and defensible but look at the legislation they push. At the end of the day my right to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED and words like those leave a heck of a lot of space to infringe on my right to keep, let alone bear, said arms. Look at the "red flag laws" the DNC has been supporting in the past couple years. After Heller made handguns untouchable they were trying to go after rifles which are basically a rounding error as far as crime and violence goes. The DNC is hellbent on attacking the ability of citizens to keep and bear arms the way the RNC is hellbent on making abortions hard to get (I specifically chose this comparison because both of these positions are an asinine invasion of people's private business).
If you want to play the weasel word game my driveway has five "tools of mass murder" in it and Tractor Supply will happily sell me 40lb bags of oxidizers to accessorize them with.
The so called "high powered assault weapons" are so low powered that they are not allowed for hunting because they don't kill. (depends on the game of course, a rabbit doesn't need much, for a deer they are just barely powerful enough, for something bigger they don't have the power to kill)
100 round magazines are fun. Not practical, but I the art on my wall isn't practical either.
Another reason that Warren is my favorite of the democratic candidate right now. It's telling that the candidate with the most tech savvy is also the one proposing to break up the FAANGs for antitrust abuses.