Social Media in the U.S. and Turkey: Antitrust Law and New Social Media Regulation
Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google CEO’s went in front of the U.S congress due to bearing their testimony against monopolization claims on Wednesday. CEO’s of the tech giants had attended and investigated on virtual video conference, simultaneously, in the Turkish parliament “New Social Media Regulations” have surpassed. Apparently, it was the busiest day of the tech companies.
Legitimacy, as well as the power of the tech titans, have been questioning for a long time. After big debates on how should be acted through these companies, finally, it will have been determined in the coming days. The problems even purposes maybe change overseas while approaching to these companies, one thing is sure that they will be agreeing of being controlled by states or replace current business strategies with something else. It means a whole industry, as happened in the tobacco and oil industry before, is on the point of a huge reform. Before scrutinizing the possible impacts, we should take a quick look through the tech companies one by one, in doing so, we can see what manners they were accused of.
What things they were accused of?
The number of people using Facebook is larger than any other imaginary communities on Earth, for example, Christianity, Islam, etc. Due to so much power, it’s been questioning how Facebook became so powerful and invincible. The inquiries show that Facebook acquiring its rivals and in case of competitors won’t sell their shares then Facebook is going to copycat the features, inevitably, the company will lose its power, thanks to the network effect. Probably the most fitting example here would be the Snapchat case.
The most experienced company on giving testimony among tech companies far and away the best is Facebook. Facebook had been grilled in doing monopolistic misdeed in the market. Also, Congress plans to charge Facebook according to copycat and merger- acquisitions.
Google is the most dominant and determiner company in its market so far, therefore, Google wasn’t solely criticizing for being monopolistic but being lawmaker. Nevertheless, Google arguing they support small businesses- may be true- but their acts in the market do not truly promote this idea. Besides their modest statement, Google has been accused of stealing an innumerable amount of content created by smaller firms in the market, which creates unjust competition from the perspective of smaller firms since it’s impossible to compete with Google.
Apple
Apple had sued for creating unjust payment rates and high control over their app market. It means, Apple wields the advantage of having its store and devices by deciding what to show and how much cuts will be used, whereas, app developers arguing the cuts, which is nearly 30% of the in-app purchases, are taking from Apple unjustly. We had heard for the first time by Spotify, they told they will not handle any more some kind of purchase cut and that’s unjust.
Amazon
Amazon is the biggest retailer in the world as well as the biggest market place where third-party companies can sell their products, for a fee. The problems began with the where we should place Amazon in this competition. Since running the marketplace and compete within it, has been measuring as a misdeed, and thus Amazon gains an unfair advantage in this competition as being a referee and the player at the same.
In the e-commerce sales market Amazon holds roughly 38 per cent of the market, the rest of the market consist of smaller pieces, that is to say, there is no one in the market to compete with Amazon directly. That is why Amazon CEO’s Jeff Bezos went to testify in front of the congress.
Let’s take a glance to the testimonies of the tech titans and lawmakers’ attitudes
Democrats and Republicans
The locus point of the democrats was built on antitrust law. Especially, Representative David Cicilline, who has been investigating the dominance of tech titans for 13 months, meanwhile, 1.3 million documents have gathered, asserts their dominance on the market will have culminated with detrimental effects. (Isaac, 2020)
“Any single action by one of these companies can affect hundreds of millions of us in profound and lasting ways,” Mr. Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, said in his opening statement. “Simply put: They have too much power.” (McCabe et al, 2020)
In against Democrats, Republicans have focused on biased concerns tech companies create. The reason why they have been questioning that may have been because of the attitude tech titans take against President Trump recently. For example, Trump had been marked on Twitter due to publishing manipulated content.
Sundar Pichai gave his testimony in front of the Congress in the name of Google, at the first glance, he was the worse one whose testimony mostly consist of repeated clichés as “We are good for America” and “We are not the ones who worry about”. Most of the questions have not handled very well, thus, unanswered.
For sure, Google has identified as the big brother of the Internet universe, at least we understood from the questions that. Google is to keep their businesses on surveillance and data management, thus, Representative Cicilline called their search engine features/policies as a “walled garden” where you control everything and everyone according to their interests. Against all these questions Sundar Pichai has solely said Google search has lots of competitors in various areas and gave an example of the Amazon in shopping.
Another topic Republicans brought was as to whether they truly support American soil/patriotism. Purpose of the asking something like that is because Google has pulled back from the Pentagon and it is asserted, they decided to work with the Chinese military.
Instagram, WhatsApp and numerous small firm that have capability creating risk environment for Facebook have been bought. At least we understand that from it while Facebook refuses. Facebook’s been doing that otherwise they’ll be under threat of other networks which are more dynamic, flexible and more open to evolving, meanwhile, CEO Mark Zuckerberg utters it’s nothing else rather funding the start-ups’ nothing anything else. However, Facebook’s Chief Financial Officer had explicitly pointed out Instagram as a “Competitive threat”. Whether it is purpose is this or that, all suspects in the area of Facebook is as to over monopolization.
Over two years Mark Zuckerberg from the last testimony related to 2016 U.S. presidential elections he has been portraying as a robotic evil. However, his business skills were underestimated, he’d foreseen all these things before and took precautions like adding Facebook logo into every app they have.
Apple
Apple, as always do, have used against every question their privacy issue card. The other cards on the table were user experiences, satisfaction ratings. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook told that ninety-nine per cent satisfaction ratings of iPhone users show they do great. Mr. Cook added they try to supply every material to whom needs, moreover, they have no intention to interfere with developers. There is no doubt every Apple product like the iPod had given a unique opportunity to the music sector, creates an opportunity for developers. Until here, Mr. Cook has very well handled and absorbed quandaries on their behalf.
Amazon
Being a candy shop where the third-party sellers are allowed to reach data sets of users, it’s what Amazon was grilled for. By saying candy shop to Amazon, congress has tried to take attention to how users turned into a meta, thus, commodified. Meanwhile, Amazon controls third-party sellers as their wish on the market as far as we learnt from last decades is “data is the king”. Jeff Bezos, due to his very well rhetoric, have handled very well. However, he would have given more specific answers to the congress, even though a few times they’ve forced him to answer still the answers were vague.
New Social Media Regulation in Turkey
At the same day when the investigation is ongoing in the US, TBMM (grand national assembly of Turkey) have surpassed the new Social Media Regulation law. Nation-states realized they need to take action against monopolized huge companies, both cases are important to understand the future of the tech industry, to take control back. However, all these regulations and fights against tech companies raise concerns on censorship and state-regulated content. Apparently, the authoritarian Turkish government has inspired by European countries, especially France and Germany while preparing the legislation.
The thing here opens the debate is BTK, the department responded to regulate online communication, has now right to decrease access speed of warned platform if they do not remove the related content. They keep not acting, eventually, the access speed will be decreased over ninety per cent. The New regulation differs with European ones in here, and it is measured as censorship rather than a regulation among public.
References
McCabe, D. (2020, July 29). Lawmakers From Both Sides Take Aim at Big Tech Executives. Retrieved from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/07/29/technology/tech-ceos-hearing-testimony
Isaac, M. (2020, July 29). Lawmakers said documents show Facebook tried to neutralize a “competitive threat.”. Retrieved from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/07/29/technology/tech-ceos-hearing-testimony
