Undermining the power of Facebook

Giving users the ability to move more easily between networks may be one way of weakening Mark Zuckerberg’s power. Picture: Getty Images

The outcry against Facebook underlines the social media company’s power, which is best beaten by giving users the power to swap in and out of its network.

Everyone from the Prime Minister down is outraged and Scott Morrison is trying to drum up a global storm against the company.

As a starting point, what Facebook does has little personal impact on me, having never been a member or likely to, so what it does to news and government websites is of no consequence because I can access them the way I have always done.

It may be an age thing.

There is also some self-interest when you hear people say they get all their media needs on Facebook without paying for it.

Having spent a lifetime paying for daily newspapers, that is outrageous.

Morrison need not worry about global support; he has it already.

Earlier this month UK competition regulator Andrea Coscelli told The Australian “the digital platforms have too much power and are under-regulated.”

He wants to do what ACCC chief Rod Sims is doing elsewhere and increasing interoperability, which means ease of access to other networks.

When you pick up your Optus phone to dial someone on a Telstra network you get connected but in the platform world once you are in the Google or Apple-walled garden you can’t move out.

Games maker Epic is fighting the platforms because once you sign up using a Google Android network you can’t move onto a different network.

This is where the platforms get their power.

But if you can easily swap out of Facebook onto a different social media site then that power diminishes.

It‘s the same principle that the government has imposed on the banks, with data portability allowing you to swap banks with ease, with full access to your own finance data to take where you want.

The UK Competition and Markets Authority has just established a digital markets unit which, like the ACCC, is seeking to impose a legally binding code of conduct for the platforms and more power to force “interoperability”, which means different computer devices systems can use the same systems.

Facebook has sparked a storm by banning publishers and users in Australia from posting and sharing news content. Picture: Getty Images

Clifford Chance partner Dave Poddar notes portability is a key part of the ACCC’s adtech recommendations which “appear intended to create the conditions of increased competition.”

“At the moment, Facebook must feel pretty comfortable; its users have nowhere easily to go and therefore it was unconstrained in its actions. However, if the federal government were to take forward the ACCC preliminary recommendations, what has happened this morning would be unlikely to occur again,” he added.

It is not as easy as it might seem because if you took your data from WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, to another platform, you are also taking other people’s data with you.

If you have family and friends photos on Facebook then by taking them with you, you are also taking their photos and may need its permission.

That is where the interoperability comes in, so it is easy to swap from site to site and you can take your friends with you, as with your telephone calls.

From Rod Sims’ perspective the tech journey is a learning curve in which he is taking one issue at a time.

First was the media code, which has worked with Google but not Facebook.

Next is adtech, with a final report due in August which will be to attack Google’s dominance in digital advertising.

Next issue is digital apps, which bring into play Apple and its walled garden, charging people to include their apps on its phone.

In the meantime the Facebook war will rage on until it realises it’s not above the law of any country.