SYLVIA MCKEOWN: US senator Elizabeth Warren vows to curb Facebook’s hold on online world
Elizabeth Warren told the packed South by Southwest conference in Texas that she intends to break up 'the big three' — Facebook, Amazon, and Google
It would appear that US senator Elizabeth Warren has been listening to Kanye West. She recently declared that despite Silicon Valley’s best efforts, “no one man should have all that power”. Last Friday, Warren took to the stage at South by Southwest in Texas and told a room full of tech journalists that she intended to break up “the big three” — Facebook, Amazon, and Google. She, like half the EU, believes the hold these tech companies have on the online world is too strong, and thinks that by breaking them apart chunk by chunk maybe smaller sellers and Americans , in general, will stand a better chance. She even had a nifty analogy to prove her point. “My view on this is it’s a little like baseball,” said Warren. “You can be an umpire, a platform, or you can own teams, that’s fine. But you can’t be an umpire and own teams.” Sure, except the tech industry is not at all like baseball, it’s more like the Mongolian horde. It was the amalgamation of the roaming nomadic tribes that would...
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