>Why care what the UK has to say about US matters?

Because the UK could ban Meta from operating there if it didn't comply.

FB should call their bluff and tell them to spin up a version of China's great firewall and try to block people then.

I guess UK does already have a firewall with it's nanny-state porn filters though.

I can see it now, "All of UK blocked FB today because of meme gif service purchase" Great headline, wonderful use of regulation /s

Meanwhile you have actual problems going on and a crashing economy, but at least we prevented a meme service from being bought!

Meta also has offices and thousands of employees in the UK. Presumably the UK government could ban them from operating in the UK completely which would be a pretty big hit to those employees and all the teams that are based there.

The question is if the UK wants to really destroy thousands of jobs over a gif service acquisition, especially in this economy.

I would hope they wouldn't do that to their own people. You're not really hurting FB, you're hurting your own citizens.

Is that really the best use of regulation, political power, etc?

Can FB buy Tenor then? Is any gif service off limits?

Who can buy Giphy? Any other social media?

Someone's clearly not familiar with the UK government's approach to jobs and the economy

Boris "Fuck Business" Johnson was only recently PM - https://www.ft.com/content/8075e68c-7857-11e8-8e67-1e1a0846c...

The UK doesn't need to block Facebook, they can just ban advertisers from buying any ad space on there. FB could still provide a service in the UK but it wouldn't make them any money.

> they can just ban advertisers from buying any ad space on there

So for example, Apple US couldn't buy ads on Facebook, because it shows ads to UK users? How do you envisage this working?

The idea would be to prevent UK residents from purchasing ads or other products and services from Meta. There are various ways of enforcing that.

> FB could still provide a service in the UK but it wouldn't make them any money.

I was replying to this. If they can still show non-UK ads to UK residents then they can still make money.

> the UK could ban Meta from operating there if it didn't comply

They'd fine them. American courts generally recognize British judgements [1].

[1] https://harrisbricken.com/blog/recognition-of-foreign-judgme...

> Why care what the UK has to say about US matters?

Because US regulators are too lazy/corrupt/starved to do the job they exist to do. Someone has to reign in oligopolies amassing even more power and dominance, and it obviously isn't going to be the US, so whoever wants to step in, be our collective guest. This time it was the UK, next up is the EU Digital Markets and Digital Services Acts.

And yes, there are much more pressing matters, which others are dealing with. A competition comission doesn't have other duties than to block such obvious abuses.

> Because US regulators are too lazy/corrupt/starved to do the job they exist to do.

Personally the fact that the US regulators aren't wasting time monitoring gif repo purchases is a good thing in my book.

> Someone has to reign in oligopolies amassing even more power and dominance

Quite a hyperbole for a gif repo purchase. Can FB purchase Tenor then? Who could purchase Giphy, any other social media giant?

This is all virtue signaling because they know certain people will eat it up.

> Personally the fact that the US regulators aren't wasting time monitoring gif repo purchases is a good thing in my book.

Good thing they're spending that time productively... Not blocking any egregious merger/acquisition from the past decade?

> Quite a hyperbole for a gif repo purchase. Can FB purchase Tenor then? Who could purchase Giphy, any other social media giant?

Facebook, or any other social media giant, shouldn't be allowed to expand in distributors to their competitors. Giphy is used by everyone, Facebook tracking Telegram users isn't something anyone needs. Anyone can purchase Giphy as long as it doesn't give them an unfair advantage, so nobody in the chat market.

> This is all virtue signaling because they know certain people will eat it up.

Who are those certain people?