Forget what you read online, Facebook is ripe for a break up

The knives are out for Facebook.

Once the darling of the tech world, it has quickly become one of the most divisive and debated companies on the planet.

It’s been accused of improperly helping influence elections, contributing to sectarian violence, lax security, anti-competitive business practices, and selling our dirty little secrets to the highest bidder.

The ongoing accusations even have politicians dusting off the antitrust books and debating whether to break up the company.

The backlash is forcing Facebook to defend itself, but the big problem for the antitrust lawyers is how to apply laws — written when the mechanical tabulating machines were the height of technology — to a social media company.

Archaic laws

The laws in question focus on products and goods, not advertising, privacy or fake news. They were also not written to fix societal problems, a point not lost on Facebook’s lawyers.

But the bottom line in anti-trust cases is the consumer, and Facebook will have a difficult time arguing they have their best interests at heart when confronted with its numerous scandals regarding personal data.

Protecting consumers from abuses — more than whether Facebook is too large or influential — is the guiding principle in antitrust law.

Any article on Facebook telling you otherwise is just fake news.