Regulating Facebook Dominance. Paper Example

Now it's starting to intervene in our life, and the use of the internet could have impacted our future generations differently. Just like any other industry, Facebook created an empire of communication from distance to distance, it pulls people together in some ways. Just like any other, Facebook cannot merely blame its mistakes of leaking private information, by saying that wasn't its purpose at first. It is caused by neglect of market supervision, and irresponsible decisions the companies made. A monopoly refers to a dominant firm with powers to control and regulate a given market to maintain high-profit margins (Hughes 1).

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Facebook is a dominant social network, but it does not dominate internet advertising.

Though growing stronger, Facebook lies below other social networks such as Google and faces stiff competition from Amazon. It also competes with Snapchat and Apple as messaging podiums. As its C.E.O. suggests, Facebook is also subject to antitrust legislation over is its contents to protect its users (Zuckerberg 2).

For starters, Facebook marketing model is based on the provision of a free app for its users, and not excluding any rivals in the social network. Additionally, Facebook's dominance is attributed to the fact that it defines user preference due to its unique services and which make it stand out from the rivals. Small businesses also benefit significantly from the company's data, scale, and promotion tools. Facebook's dominance should be regulated in the social networking environment.

American society is founded on the notion that no authority should be concentrated on a single individual or firm because people are all imperfect. However, Facebook dominance has made it difficult for other similar businesses to compete effectively. Having operated for over a decade, Facebook is estimated to be worth half-trillion dollars and commanding over eighty percent of the global social networking returns. Facebook has hence become a powerful dominant, obscuring all its competitors from other public networking service providers. Due to the quality of services provided by Facebook, people seeking to quit it have no meaningful alternative despite the worry on their privacy and loss of confidence in this platform. Additionally, due to its dominance, it becomes quite hard for its users to delete their Facebook accounts permanently. One of the alternatives is Instagram, which is also a Facebook subsidiary (Hughes 4). With this kind of market exclusivity, Facebook has overstepped in peoples; trust. Due to the minimal chances of leaving Facebook, the best alternative would be adapting to better regulations to ensure that the safety of the users is guaranteed. In such a business venture that Facebook deals in, customer service and relations should be paramount. My view on the matter is that even if Facebook is to expand, the core focus of the team should be creating a memorable user experience rather than snatching ideas everywhere.

Facebook growth is attributed to creating dominance over its competitors. Due to the lack of proper regulations on social networking, Facebook has negatively used its dominance powers to copy the technologies used by its competitors. An example of where Facebook has copied these technologies is the News Feed algorithm formerly used by Vimeo and YouTube and Snapchat stories. As a result of dominating social media, it lacks enough regulations regarding information privacy for its users. Additionally, Facebook may be prone to negligence regarding the management of its data. Due to its dominance in social networking, Facebook also is not subjected to market-based accountability. Such elements mean that each time the company makes some mistakes, and the exhausting pattern is repeated, that is, outrage, disappointment, and then resignation. According to Hughes (4), "Investors realize that if a company gets traction, Facebook will copy its innovations, shut it down or acquire it for a relatively modest sum."

Facebook creates an environment that scares other social networking entrepreneurs, which limits consumer choice. In managing such practices, the right option to do is developing appropriate regulations to control data mining and the sharing of information beyond what the users have agreed.

Facebook also gathers data from partner enterprises and applications without the consent of its users. In regards to speech and information, proper regulations should be formulated to develop clear guidelines for acceptable speech as well as controlling the manner in which Facebook collects and shares personal information.

The business model of Facebook should be regulated through the enforcement of antitrust laws, which limit the company's acquisitions to create a competitive environment. Other than acquiring its competitors, such regulations would make Facebook more accountable and better its services in an attempt to become a market leader (Hughes 7). Acquisition regulations would go the extra mile in encouraging considerable investments in technologies as a result of having a competitive market. Additionally, such regulations would of great benefit to the digital advertisers who would have several firms vying for their money. With competing for social media platforms, users have the freedom to choose a network with high privacy standards (Clegg 2). Other platforms could have joining fees with little adverting while other platforms could allow users to tweak and customize their feeds.

In ensuring a competitive market that encourages innovation, lawmakers should be responsible for defining and creating regulations for Facebook's business model. Proper controls should be defined to ensure Facebook's accountability and eliminate the market lock to guarantee the user's ability to protest and move to substitute platforms. This can be done by creating avenues where users can raise their qualms without any problems, for example, dedicated forums. Encouraging experimentation of other services like websites like Twitter and Snapchat can also help.

In managing Facebook's dominance, proper regulations should be adopted to reestablish net neutrality. Reinstating net neutrality would create a fair environment and allow new technology investments to compete on an equal measure with social networking giants such as Google and Facebook (Weinstein 2). Such regulations would ensure the users identify new social platforms that match their tastes, and values hence decide which platforms thrive.

With a lack of proper regulations, Facebook has grossly overstepped the public's trust, especially in managing harmful content, data portability, and election integrity. By regulating the internet rules, it is possible to create freedom for entrepreneurs to develop new things as well as independence for users to express themselves (Klein 4). Regulators and governments have the responsibility of developing rules and independent bodies that will ensure the availability of review systems to provide reviews on what to embrace and what to avoid. In order to cope with the technological marvel that is Facebook, the government can look into funding its technological-based countermeasures that can be used to keep this tech giant in line.

In ensuring that Facebook dominance does not surpass the public's trust, there should be proper regulations on publication of transparency reports. The transparency reports will play a crucial role in showing how harmful content is being removed.

The Facebook business model could also be regulated by adopting privacy regulations as well as guaranteeing the data portability principle. Private and personal data should be protected from being seen or stolen from the third parties. In regards to this, Facebook should implement the regulations on data storage by avoiding the local storage of data, thus minimizing the chances of data interference (Mcgill and Overly 3). Such regulations would make Facebook take responsibility for any harm caused to its users. The rules should hold Facebook accountable when it behaves peculiarly.

Other than redefining monopolies, the best option would be developing regulations to ensure that the dominating organizations do not take advantage of the situation. The regulations should ensure that the users' needs are prioritized, and none of the agreements with the service providers is violated. In social networking, some of the critical factors include accountability, privacy, and safety of information. With increased rates of data mismanagement and lack of accountability on Facebook, there is a need for the relevant authorities to lay down new regulations that keep a watchful eye on social networking. Proper controls would be much better in defining clear responsibilities for the public, organizations, and governments going forward.

Works Cited

Clegg, Nick. "Opinion | Breaking Up Facebook Is Not the Answer." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia, 15 May 2019.

Hughes, Chris. "Opinion | It's Time to Break Up Facebook." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia, 15 May 2019.

Mcgill, Margaret H., and Steven Overly. "Why Breaking Up Facebook Won't Be Easy." POLITICO, 27 May 2019.

Weinstein, Mark. "Opinion | I Compete With Facebook, and It's No Monopoly." W.S.J., 27 June 2019.

Zuckerberg, Mark. "Mark Zuckerberg: The Internet needs new rules. Let's start in these four areas." The Washington Post, 30 Mar. 2019.

Klein, Ezra. "Facebook is a Capitalism Problem, Not a Mark Zuckerberg Problem." Vox, 10 May 2019.