U.S. States Ask Appeals Court to Reinstate Meta Lawsuit

Meta is making the same arguements that AT&T made when they were forced to breakup their dominance of the telecom industry. All kinds of ominous predictions were made about losing services and losing 'our technology' - the same BS ads that Meta is running daily with people saying that the Senate is trying to take away 'our' technology.

After the AT&T breakup for anti-trust arguements we no longer had to pay lomg distance charges to neighboring exchanges to family members just 20 minutes away. There were new innovations for computer conectinvity using increasingly better modems, better voice compression to save bandwidth and much lower costs for land line phone.

Capilatlism thrives on pure competiton to make better products and services at a price point where customers will buy them. When any company becomes big enough to dominate the industry space it occupies, by buying out or suppressing competitors, capitalism dies.

Frankly, I think Facebook masquerading as Meta is a company that is already in its early death throws but it still has a lot money to stifle competitors and that is as bad for capitalism as is the purchasing of government influence to assure cash flows without having to actually earn them. 

Overall, Facebook has not acted responsibly with regard to misuse of their platform by nefarious players like Cambridge Analytica and the hate groups whose formations on Facebook are facilitated by their algorithms to find new like-minded members.

Facebook does have a good international network of interconnected servers that they sell access to as a service for other companies that, for example, continuously monitor specialized equipment for failure or malfunction around the world. But that will just work just as well as a stand alone service,

The US should follow the German example which impose controls when there is a lack of competition needed for marketplace competition not just for social media but also other industries like agriculture and food, consumer products, etc where mergers and acquisitions have reduced competition resulting in rising prices & profit margins,

"[special abuse control] ...designation, which stands for five years, empowers the regulator, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO), to take faster action to respond to competition concerns linked to Meta’s operations by imposing operational conditions intended to correct antitrust abuses."

https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/04/meta-germany-fco-antitrust/

Meta faces years of tougher antitrust oversight in Germany

Facebook’s rebranded parent, Meta, has become the next tech giant to be confirmed as subject to a s...

https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/04/meta-germany-fco-antitrust/

I oppose the lawsuit.  Facebook/Meta is a free service.  You don't have to use it, lots of people do not use it.  If you don't like it, don't use it.  That was not an option with other monopolies being cited as precedent, like AT&T (what, send a telegram instead??) or Standard Oil (what, switch back to a horse and buggy?).

I support more antitrust action like this. Meta has become too big and has a stranglehold over social media and messaging around the world. Not only is it too big and powerful, but it has shown an inability to regulate itself, allowing misinformation and hate speech to fester on Facebook without much check.

There comes a time when businesses get too big to be reigned in and held to standards, and Meta has reached that point.

Monopoly is never a positive situation. I am not part of Meta, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, or virtually any other social media platform outside of Causes (and I question,at times, why I continue to be on Causes due to the degradation of the site by the right wing). Reinstatement of the lawsuit is necessary specifically to prevent monopoly. I do understand the goal of unfettered capitalism is monopoly and a two class society (one level rich - 1%, 99% poor). That doesn't mean such a model is viable long-term nor healthy for the long-term stability of a society. Regulated capitalism that provides for a strong middle class cannot occur in a monopolistic structure such as Meta, Alphabet, and similar corporations are pursuing.

Not a yes or no question but Causes just wants liberal sound bytes.... were the filings timely yes or no?

It is time for Meta to FACE the music!

And on another note Alito on SCOTUS critics: 'questioning our integrity crosses an important line' Questioning the integrity of the Supreme Court! The Supreme Court has no integrity. It is completely political and totally out of touch with 75% of this nation. The Supreme Court needs to be completely remodeled to fit into this century. It's absolutely pathetic.

yes

I have several concerns about the way Meta/Facebook does business, or fails to do business. First, as in this lawsuit, is buying up competitors; second, tracking users, even though being asked not to track (separate lawsuit on that one); third, I am very suspicious of their policies regarding political posts—they have allowed slanted and spurious posts to go unchecked and undeleted; fourth, their "community standards" are a joke and posts that are objectionable are often not removed. They have been posting advertising so much that ads outnumber posts from friends or organizations I'm interested in; and many ads are presented deceptively as informative articles. I'm gradually trying to reduce my exposure except to keep in touch with family or friends; both to reduce the amount of tracking and to reduce the amount of power wasted by Facebook on my phone. If you have the ability to check power usage, (Battery in Settings on iPhones), you'll find that Facebook is one of the biggest power drains because of its background activity.

There shouldn't be a statute of limitations for anti-trust, conditions may change and what wasn't a "trust" before might be a "trust" later.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc, should be treated like public utilities. 

Monopolies are harmful to we the people.  We have fewer options and are at their mercy when it comes to pricing.

Mete has caused some serious problems and that should be looked into.

its a monopoly. plain as day.

Meta shouldve tackle hate speech along time ago 

If memory serves me, the "Statute of Limitations" was desolved many, many years ago with the lone exception of murder being unlimited.  So how can this argument be allowewd for this lawsuit?  Monopolies of businesses were supposedly abolished back when AT&T was forced to give up Bell Telephone so how in the hell can all these companies buy up other businesses and get away with total control over pricing not to mention production.  Yep!  We are unknowingly being forced into a Fascist type of government which is slowly stealing our democracy, our liberties and freedoms.  We must band together and rid ourselves of the people who are attempting to obstruct our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness whether they are government, judicial, or religious zealots.  Nothing we are not interested in should be placed on our "news feed" without permission from the individual.  People are being "brainwashed" through social media when it is supposed to be limited to personal choice of who or what the individual wants.  Personally, I either hide what I don't see, ignore, or even "block" what I don't ask for.  It falls under the category of "FREE CHOICE".

The amount of data mining used to manipulate the public is beyond believable. Time to start reigning in all of the big players concerning this. Enough is enough

META has now become a monopoly just like Charter House. We have Anti-Trust laws in place to stop this from happening, but they aren't being enforced. Due to this and "Citizens United" Corporations are now running this country! This is compounded by Lobbyists giving gifts to our Representaters, and Senators, to BUY their VOTES,  who we elected to represent us, NOT Corporate lobbyists! All of Congress needs to READ the CONSTITUTION, since the gifting by lobbyists as well as the Filibuster violate the Constitution! What happened to the OATHS of Office taken to honor, protect, and defend the Constitution? I find this sad!

I don't use Facebook for many reasons 

Social Media must be liable for what they publish.