facebook sucks | Red Army Screaming

US federal, state governments file antitrust lawsuit against Facebook

The US Federal Trade Commission and nearly every US state just filed a lawsuit against Facebook Inc, in what will be one of the biggest antitrust cases in a generation. It could require the divestment of assets such Instagram and WhatsApp.

“For nearly a decade, Facebook has used its dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals, snuff out competition, all at the expense of everyday users,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James.

James said the company used vast amounts of money to acquire such rivals before they could threaten the company’s dominance.

Facebook is the world’s biggest social network with 2.7 billion users and a company with a market value of nearly $US800 billion ($1 trillion) whose CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the world’s fifth-richest individual.

FUCK EM ‘UP, FTC.

psql:

Giphy’s acquisition by Facebook is built on nothing short of theft. The initial core product was stealing gifs from tumblr artists, creating fake accounts for them, and shopping around a search engine combined with this stolen data. Not only have they violated Tumblr’s Terms of Service, but have also stolen property from artists without consent. When confronted by this, staff at Giphy told artists the same sob story: “We’re not profiting off anyone anywhere. We have no income” They sold for 400 million dollars.

While they mention folks can file a DMCA takedown, this does not reverse the fact that Giphy redeemed the work of artists in exchange for driving up company valuation. The acquisition represents an awful precedent for not compensating artists. This predatory company should be held accountable. Giphy employees are receiving option exercise agreements, yet artists are receiving nothing. I encourage anybody who has had their work scraped and distributed by Giphy without consent to come forward.