... since Facebook isn’t bound by the same ethical standards of journalism or information sharing ... the chance of encountering heavily biased or downright false information is high. Unlike a traditional news platform, which uses professional judgment to

would be remembered.

This moniker is a bit of a misnomer, because Roosevelt did not always believe big business to be bad. As long as it grew through legitimately outmatching its competition, he felt it served a public good. But if a business grew through unfair or unreasonable practices, Roosevelt felt the government should intervene in order to protect the public.

The Northern Securities Company, which dominated the railroad industry, was ordered to dissolve following a 1904 Supreme Court ruling that the company was violating the Sherman Antitrust

Act. Likewise, in 1911, Standard Oil was ordered to break into 34 separate companies following a Supreme Court decision that determined the company’s majority market share had come as a result of economic threats against competitors and secret deals with railroads.

In more recent history, the U.S. Justice Department ordered AT&T — the sole provider of telephone service in the country through its Bell System — to split into nine independent companies in 1982. The so-called “Baby Bells” allowed competitors to re-enter the market, providing telephone services and related equipment.

Many would argue that Facebook is a textbook definition of a monopoly, but the Federal Trade Commission still can’t come up with the evidence to prove it.

The FTC filed suit against the company in 2020, but because of the way it presented its case, it could not prove that Facebook controls a dominant share of personal social networking services.

The reason this filing initially failed, according to a Tech Crunch report, is because they failed to include messaging apps — like the Facebook-owned Whatsapp — into the equation. If they were to include that data, Facebook would control more than 90% of the market. However, the FTC re-filed a lawsuit ironically on the same day Zuckerberg announced the Facebook Company would be rebranding itself as Meta.

The parallels between the monopolies of the early 20th century and Facebook are striking. Instead of competing with alternatives, they’ve in essence pulled them into their machine — or attempted to, as when they made a bid to buy both Twitter and Snapchat.

“Facebook has, for many years, continued to engage in a course of anticompetitive conduct with the aim of suppressing, neutralizing, and deterring serious competitive threats to Facebook,” the FTC suit alleges.

Time for change

With evidence that Facebook has become so powerful that they have the ability to shape an election or sway public opinion to such a degree, they’ve demonstrated they’re too big for the public good. Furthermore, From both a civil and an economic perspective, accurate information is a public good. A student of microeconomics would clearly recognize that this strengthens the case for government action. While I’m not always for government intervention, when there exists a factual basis of monopoly behavior which limits societal consumption of a public good, limited regulation is necessary.

There should absolutely be competing models of social media communication — ideally, models that value accuracy over salaciousness.

If the FTC suit and the recent order from the UK government for Facebook to sell Giphy is any indication, Facebook’s reign as many’s primary source of information will soon come to a close. Until then, it’s important for users to understand that the information they receive from Facebook shouldn’t be wholly trusted. Before sharing a story, consider the source and verify its accuracy with other reputable sources. If it seems too scandalous to be true, it probably is.

Seth David Radwell is a business executive and the author of “American Schism,” the 2022 International Book Award Winner for Best General Nonfiction.