Advocacy Groups Are Pushing The FTC To Break Up Facebook

An anonymous reader quotes the Verge:

Advocacy groups are calling for Facebook to be broken up as a result of its Cambridge Analytica scandal, subsequent privacy violations, and repeated consumer data breaches. Groups like Open Market Institute, Color of Change, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center wrote to the Federal Trade Commission Thursday requesting a major government intervention into how Facebook operates. The letter outlined several moves the FTC could take, including a multibillion-dollar fine, reforming the company's hiring practices, and most importantly, breaking up one of the most powerful social media companies for abusing its market position...

According to organizations like Open Market Institute and Color of Change, Facebook should be required to give up $2 billion and divest ownership of Instagram and WhatsApp for failing to protect user data on those platforms as well. 'Given that Facebook's violations are so numerous in scale, severe in nature, impactful for such a large portion of the American public and central to the company's business model, and given the company's massive size and influence over American consumers,' the letter reads, 'penalties and remedies that go far beyond the Commission's recent actions are called for.'

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