Big Tech and Antitrust

Peter Van Doren and David KempInternal Facebook documents recently released by whistleblower Frances Haugen, and her subsequent Senate testimony, have reignited the discussion about big tech companies and antitrust. Over the past few years, politicians as disparate as Senator Elizabeth Warren and former President Donald Trump have complained about the supposed monopoly power of companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple. Some have interpreted information in the leaked Facebook documents as a loss for the social media company in its battle against antitrust regulators; aPoliticoarticle earlier this week declared that the “Facebook documents offer a treasure trove for Washington’s antitrust war.” While the media link Big Tech with bad behavior and antitrust as a solution, the documents actually do not offer much evidence of market power and consumer harm, which are central to antitrust policy.In thecurrent issue ofRegulation, Jonathan Klickargues against the use of antitrust laws against the tech companies because their social networking services are free to consumers. As our colleague Ryan Bourne hasargued, Facebook ’s market is not social networking but advertising. And in selling advertising space and competing for consumer attention, Facebook faces stiff competition from other tech and non-tech companies, such as radio and television.If market power in advertising isn ’t the problem, what is? Critics argue that tech companies ' size and prominence give the...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs