Unsplash/Kon Karampelas
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*100 degrees with 100% humidity*
If you have any travel tips to beating the DC summer heat, Facebook’s C-Suite might be interested, as the FTC is considering hauling Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg to the stand to give sworn testimony.
The potential depositions would question whether FB violated US antitrust laws… and presumably, be the plotline to The Social Network 2.
You see, the social media company allegedly bought companies, such as Onavo and Whatapp, to put a stop to future competition. That’s capitalism, baby! Zuck and Sandberg were not deposed last year when FB was ordered by the FTC to pay $5B for consumer-privacy violations.
In the meantime, Zuck has his July 27 trip to prepare for. He’ll join Bezos, and other top tech execs (extechutives, if you will) will appear (potentially virtually) before the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee to speak about the technology giants’ dominance in their industry. According to a Facebook spokesman, Facebook is apparently “looking forward to sharing its views about the competitive landscape.” Yea, right…
Elsewhere…
The Justice Department is looking into broad antitrust concerns at dominant tech platforms, such as FB and Google, and is preparing to sue Alphabet sometime this summer. Additionally, many state attorneys general are investigating FB over antitrust concerns.
The bottom line…
Somewhere out there, Tom from MySpace is laughing.
All Zuck wanted to do this weekend was kick back, surf some waves, and smoke some meats.
But in addition to his headache in DC, he has another issue to worry about, and that’s advertising revenue. Disney, which is facebook’s largest advertiser, has made a significant cut to its advertising spend on the platform.
Mickey Mouse has joined other companies, such as Ford, Verizon, and Starbs who are cutting or pausing advertising spend to boycott FB’s lack of enforcement of its policies on hate speech and fake news.
Water Cooler Talking Point(s)
💧 “I don’t think robots can get sunburnt, but Zuck isn’t taking any chances.” – (Nick, The Water Coolest HQ)
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