The Facebook Outage Shows Why It Should Be Broken Up
Just one reason among many for antitrust legislation
The outage on Facebook’s servers was unexpected and lengthy. But it was also an eye-opener to just how much we rely on one company for providing the services we use every day on the internet.
Everyone knows Facebook, but you might not be aware the company also owns Instagram and WhatsApp. If you weren’t aware of this fact, you were when the outage resulted in all three apps being unavailable for hours.
The outage was eventually resolved and normal service resumed but the wider point is how reliant we’ve become on Facebook without even realising it.
An outage on the servers of one company caused mayhem across the internet. The usual means of communication were interrupted and we were left to contemplate what life was like pre-internet.
Want to get in touch with someone? How about a text message or even a call?Sounds very much like the early 2000s rather than 2021.
What the outage revealed about Facebook was what many people have been referencing for a while now but hasn’t reached a mainstream audience. That Facebook is a monopoly and should be broken up.
You might not realise it but Facebook has its fingers in many pieces of the critical structure of the internet. The titular social media platform isn’t as popular as it used to be. This is more of an anecdotal point than anything else.
I barely use my Facebook account anymore. If it wasn’t for the various friends I have around the world, I’d delete my account today. Despite its numerous flaws, Facebook is one of the best ways of keeping in contact with them.
Even if you don’t use the platform that much anymore, you’re still exposed to the company. Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion back in 2012, purchased WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014 and also operates the Facebook Messenger app.
Odds are, if you want to keep in contact with people across the globe, you’re using an app Facebook owns. While this might not seem like a problem, the outage highlights what can go wrong in a worst-case scenario.
Then you have other implications, such as the unfair competition new players have in trying to get into the market and the data Facebook is collecting on all of its users. Some of which is sold off to the highest bidder. It’s important to remember that when an app is free, that generally means you’re the product.
Facebook isn’t offering these services out of the goodness of its heart. Mark Zuckerberg isn’t a saint whose sole mission is to keep the world connected no matter what he says. The way Facebook makes money is buying finding out your interests and letting advertisers bet on who gets to show you ads as you scroll through the platform.
If you ever wondered why you suddenly see ads for things you’ve recently searched, it’s because Facebook tracks you across the web and gets to know what you like, serving you more and more of this on their platforms.
What this outage has shown is the fragility of one company commanding large parts of key internet infrastructure. If only one of the apps had gone down, the damage wouldn’t have been that bad. But for four of the most downloaded apps to suddenly go offline highlights just how deep Facebook’s tentacles reach and how exposed we are to the success and failure of the company.
Back in the early 1900s, there was one oil company that commanded a large proportion of the market, Standard Oil. Founded by John D. Rockefeller in 1870, Standard grew to become a behemoth in the American oil industry. At its height in 1904, ‘it controlled 91% of oil production and 85% of final sales in the United States.’
Competition is one of the hallmarks of a free market, so when one company owns 90% of the production in a single industry, it’s a stretch to call that industry a truly free market. It’s a monopoly.
Facebook may not have the same level of dominance as Standard Oil but it still commands a large proportion of the market, specifically the social media part. Is it fair that one company controls such a large swathe of the apps we use on a daily basis? I don’t think it is.
The arguments to bring antitrust legislation against Facebook are lengthy. Its role in seeding misinformation around elections, fuelling genocides and spreading misinformation during the pandemic are good enough reasons. But the outage reveals the fundamental weakness we’re exposed to if something goes wrong.
A much more reliable system would see these apps split up into separate companies, removing the risk of a single outage taking down four apps at once.
While the outage may have been inconvenient, it could result in action finally being taken against a company that has become too powerful and unwieldy.
We should break Facebook up before it gets any bigger. Society will be all the better for it.