Because of Monday evening’s outage of Facebook and its sister services Instagram and WhatsApp, a large part of the world was without their favorite social networks for about six hours. This led to annoying situations for RSM students, as a Designing Business Applications assignment was due that same evening and the outage made communications difficult, but more importantly, it also caused many institutions to be without a means of quickly communicating with their dependents for some time. Both medical professionals and hospitals who communicate with their patients over WhatsApp and governments were unable to quickly inform people about the outages, as the very ways of disseminating information were down (Facebook down, 2021). This of course poses the question: how dependent on Facebook’s services are we, and is this dependency too large?
Since Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014, the company has owned the four most-downloaded apps over the past decade (Shead, 2019), as well as four of the five most popular social networks worldwide (Statista, 2021). Personally, I think this should have never been possible, and the acquisition should never have been approved. Last Monday’s global outage showed just how much we depend on one single company for communications, and that one simple error within that company can significantly hinder communications for a couple of hours.
Not only is the lack of communication annoying, an outage like this week’s causes economic damage as well. Advertisers lose money because of not being able to make use of a part of their services (Hsu, 2021), and small vendors were unable to sell through the social media platforms for six hours. While these economic consequences are admittedly not very large or of long-term consequence, they do further show the almost monopolistic role Facebook and its brands play in our everyday social and commercial life. So let’s just call Facebook what it is: a practical near-monopoly in social media, that should in my opinion be hit with some antitrust laws. If one single company can have such a large influence on worldwide communications, news output and general data, the company should be broken up and be returned to its original state of three or two separate companies.
References:
Facebook down: Six hours without WhatsApp. (2021). BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58801814.
Hsu, T. (2021). Facebook’s outage frustrates advertisers heading into the holiday season. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/business/media/facebook-outage-advertisers.html.
Shead, S. (2019). Facebook owns the four most downloaded apps of the decade. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50838013.
Most popular social networks worldwide as of July 2021, ranked by number of active users. (2021). Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
Great Post! I think the topic on monopoly from tech giants is incredibly interesting. Seemingly 20 years ago Microsoft was let off with a warning of sorts for abusing its market leading position. I think that itself has set a precedent that governments are hesitant to take any action against these tech giants due to their immense lobbying power through economic and employment opportunities along with the technological innovation that they present. I very much agree that it is perhaps irresponsible to let one company rule so many aspects of everyone’s lives, but I do not think that breaking the company up is the only solution, as large companies also provide synergies and leverage efficiencies. I think that there is a knowledge gap about technology between the companies and law makers, as shown by some of the congressional hearings in the US with the CEOs of tech giants few years ago. It maybe optimistic, but I think a better understanding of how these companies operate and the technology behind them can help bring stronger and effective legislation to control companies such as facebook rather than going straight to breaking them up.