• CEO_of_TrainGang [he/him]
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    4 years ago

    The US government can “try” whatever it likes. What they end up actually doing is what matters. Call me when the government actually breaks up Facebook

    • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
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      4 years ago

      Yeah, the Facebook comparison is a near-perfect one, and I guess we're about to see which government is more serious about taking on capital. I know who my money's on.

      • Civility [none/use name]
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        4 years ago

        I mean, the US government never actually wanted to break up the social media conglomerates.

        That was just a bargaining position they held until social media companies stopped resisting getting fully folded into the intelligence apparatus.

        • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
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          4 years ago

          The U.S. government isn't a monolithic entity (at least when it comes to domestic policy, and especially when it comes to antitrust regulation). State AGs can bring antitrust cases, for example, and it's a big stretch to say every single one of them is on board with every single U.S. monopoly just continuing on untouched. Even if the relevant decision makers don't actually care about corporate power one way or the other, careerists are always out there looking for a way to make a name for themselves.

          Some parts of the government do want to enforce antitrust laws; they're just the minority, and they're hampered by so much of the government being too old to comprehend the extent of what tech companies are doing. You're absolutely right, though, that there are a lot of insincere threats made with the intent of gaining cooperation with law enforcement and the intelligence state.

      • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
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        4 years ago

        basic anti-trust

        decent anti-trust

        We have to see how this pans out before we classify it. It may go well beyond simply breaking up Alibaba into smaller companies.

    • ap1 [any,undecided]
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      4 years ago

      they are following the same process here, Ant Group is yet to be broken up as well. They are the same stage in terms of "orders", and the campaigns against the tech giants have been going on for comparable periods.