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US Presidential candidate Warren, Zuckerberg lock claws over #BreakUpBigTech

US Presidential candidate Warren, Zuckerberg lock claws over #BreakUpBigTech

Oct 03, 2019
02:12 pm

What's the story

2020 US presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren is planning to break up tech giants including Facebook Inc, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg isn't pleased. Over the past few days, Warren has been drawing attention to Facebook's "illegal anticompetitive practices" that have "undermined democracy." At around 3:30 am IST, Warren shared a leaked audio of Zuckerberg saying that he's ready to "go to mat and fight."

Warren's plan

Why does Senator Warren want to break Facebook up?

The Democratic US Presidential candidate does not have a personal beef with Facebook, and is going up against other tech giants like Amazon and Google, in general. Her plan is to promote more competition in the tech sector by cracking down on tech monopolies run by Facebook, Amazon, and Google, which have "too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy."

Reason

Warren believes tech-giants have too much power, too little accountability

According to Senator Warren, Facebook has been stomping on consumer privacy rights in the absence of significant competition since it acquired WhatsApp and Instagram. Warren tweeted, "More than 85% of all social networking traffic goes through sites owned or operated by Facebook. They've got a lot of power and face little competition or accountability." She said Facebook faces no real pressure to tackle disinformation.

Quote

Imagine Facebook and Instagram trying to outdo each other: Warren

Warren tweeted, "Imagine Facebook and Instagram trying to outdo each other to protect your privacy and keep misinformation out of your feed, instead of working together to sell your data, inundate you with misinformation, and undermine our election security. That's why we need to #BreakUpBigTech."

Leaked clip

Leaked audio from July town hall meeting at Facebook Inc

Notably, on Tuesday, The Verge published the transcript of an audio leaked from a July town hall meeting at Facebook Inc where Zuckerberg told employees that he is prepared to "go to the mat and fight" against any plans to break up the social media giant. The statement was a response to a question about Warren's plan, which was unveiled earlier this year.

Quote

If Warren becomes President, we would have legal challenge: Zuckerberg

According to the leaked clip, Zuckerberg said, "If [Warren] gets elected president, then I would bet that we will have a legal challenge and I would bet that we will win the legal challenge. He added, "And does that still suck for us? Yeah. I mean, I don't want to have a major lawsuit against our own government."

Public statement

Remarks in leaked clip weren't supposed to be public: Zuckerberg

Zuckerberg later issued a statement on Facebook where he owned up to what he said, adding that "it was meant to be internal rather than public." He wrote on Facebook, "Now that it's out there, you can check it out if you're interested in seeing an unfiltered version of what I'm thinking and telling employees..." He also shared a link to The Verge article.

Facebook Post

You can check Zuckerberg's post here

Other details

Democratic Presidential candidates agree on #BreakUpBigTech

However, other Democratic Presidential candidates seem to share Warren's views. Senators Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris agree that splitting up tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Amazon needs to be considered. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has also launched an antitrust investigation into Facebook. Separately, a group of state attorneys general led by New York is also investigating.