Re:Promotion of alternative social platforms policy
by wpietri on Sunday December 18, 2022 @02:02PM
(#34041439)
Yes and no. Twitter is dominant for their slice of social media, as demonstrated by the fact that a lot of the people who think about leaving don't see viable alternatives. But I agree that US anti-trust law is so hands off at this point that there's no chance the FTC would do anything substantive here.
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Re:Promotion of alternative social platforms policy
by snowwrestler on Sunday December 18, 2022 @02:45PM
(#34042062)
If you define Twitter’s market as “sites that do things very similarly to Twitter,” I agree they look dominant. I doubt U.S. courts would agree with such a narrow definition, though.
Twitter itself doesn’t seem to take that view of its own market, given that Facebook and Instagram are first on the block list—both products of Meta, a competitor with far more eyeballs and revenue than Twitter.
Re:Promotion of alternative social platforms policy
by wpietri on Sunday December 18, 2022 @02:53PM
(#34042163)
The FTC themselves say "a product market in an antitrust investigation consists of all goods or services that buyers view as close substitutes". So I don't think it's "do things very similarly to Twitter" as much as it is "serves the same need as Twitter". And as I said, looking at the discussions around leaving Twitter provides plenty of evidence that close substitutes are not available in the view of users.