The CEOs of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google denied they engaged in anti-competitive practices, but lawmakers had receipts
Broadly, the defense put up by the CEOs revolved around the idea that if the entirety of human connectivity, commerce, information gathering, advertising, and hardware are taken into account, then they can’t really be considered monopolies. Any market control theyexert, they argued, is simply American. Zuckerberg said that Facebook is a “proudly American company” achieved its success “the American way.
Unfortunately for these titans of industry, the nation they love so much also has a slate of antitrust laws, and the committee they appeared before on Wednesday was able to produce documents that prove they might not be quite as magnanimous as they let on in their opening statements.
Facebook’s approach to competitors has largely been to just buy them. Most notably, it gobbled up Instagram in 2012, and the messaging service WhatsApp two years later. The tech behemoth has also made moves to hamstring other apps, like when it went out of its way to prevent Vine users from connecting with their Facebook friends on the app. As is always the case with Facebook, how the company is using data gathered from its platforms is also a concern.
The committee wasn’t buying it. “Mergers and acquisitions that buy off potential competitive threats violate the antitrust laws,” Nadler charged, citing the newly released documents. “In your own words, you purchased Instagram to neutralize a competitive threat.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal later grilled Zuckerberg over emails in which Facebook executives discussed copying competitors and “threatening to clone the products of another company while also attempting to acquire that company.” After Zuckerberg denied the latter accusation, Jayapal reminded him he was under oath before citing documents noting that Facebook attempted to develop a product called Facebook Camera before it acquired Instagram.
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