If you’re Facebook, or any company really, getting broken up by the federal government would be bad. It’s messy, expensive, and has the potential to put whatever remains at a significant disadvantage. At one point, in an audio recording of a meeting with employees that was published by The Verge, Mark Zuckerberg called government efforts to regulate the company or even force it to divest of Instagram and WhatsApp, an “existential” threat.
At the time, Zuckerberg was referring to the potential of an Elizabeth Warren presidency, who had called for the company to be split apart. That, of course, never happened.
The government is, however, taking aggressive action that very well could result in the company being broken apart, at least if the FTC and 48 attorneys general from 46 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam have their way.
In the lawsuits, the government alleges that the world’s largest social media platform crushed competition either by acquiring companies before they became a threat or, when it couldn’t, by shutting down access to Facebook’s APIs, effectively killing off those companies. The most prominent acquisitions include Instagram and WhatsApp, for which Facebook spent $1 billion and $19 billion respectively.
Those purchases certainly contributed to Facebook’s position today as the most dominant social media company, and its spot as the second-largest advertising platform in the world (after Google). Instagram, on its own, now has 1 billion users.
You would think, then, that Facebook would be mounting an extraordinary effort to fight back. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine we might see the company using its powerful position as a tool of communication to tell its users how important the integration between Instagram and Facebook or WhatsApp is to their lives, and how all of that could change if the government gets its way.
But, that’s not the argument Facebook is making, at least not right now. Instead, Facebook is taking out full-page ads this week in three of the largest print newspapers to warn people about… Apple?
Based on its behavior, it’s pretty clear that Facebook really believes it is facing an existential threat, it’s just not what Zuckerberg predicted.
Apple and Facebook have gone back and forth over privacy for a while, though the fight has certainly intensified recently. Apple announced earlier this year that iOS 14, the current version of the software that powers the iPhone, would require apps to gain permission from users before they can track and collect their information. Apple also started requiring apps to identify what information they track in what is being referred to as “privacy nutrition labels,” within the iOS App Store.
Then, this week, came the ads where Facebook has accused Apple of both destroying small businesses, as well as putting the internet as we know it at risk. I know it sounds like I’m…
Read More: Facebook and Apple Battle Over Privacy Existential Threat