The Smoking Gun in the Facebook Antitrust Case

IMAGINE A POPULAR social network that takes privacy super seriously. By default, your posts are visible only to people in your real-life community. Not only does the company not use tracking cookies, but it promises it never will. It even announces that future changes to the privacy policy will be put to a vote by users before implementation.

It’s hard to imagine now, but such a social network once existed. It was called Facebook. The company’s journey from privacy-focused startup to mass surveillance platform is at the heart of the long-awaited antitrust case filed today by a group of 46 states, along with the District of Columbia and Guam. The bipartisan coalition, led by New York State Attorney General Letitia James, alleges that Facebook achieved its dominance through a years-long strategy of anticompetitive tactics, including its acquisitions of budding rivals like Instagram and WhatsApp. As it built up that dominant position, the suit argues, it began offering users a worse and worse privacy experience.