Facebook Outage Shows Risks of Its Monopoly, Ocasio-Cortez Says

Representative says Facebook acts have ‘destructive effects’
Company should be broken up, Ocasio-Cortez says on Twitter

WATCH: Facebook Inc. shares tumbled as the social-media company suffered a devastating outage that shut out many of its 2.7 billion global users. (Source: Bloomberg)

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By Tom Giles

October 4, 2021 at 10:36 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Facebook Inc.’s massive outage Monday was a reminder of its monopoly over communications and other services around the world, and it was the latest indicator that the company should be broken up, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter.

The Federal Trade Commission has sued Facebook, alleging that the company engaged in an anticompetitive strategy of buying companies, including the photo-sharing service Instagram and the messaging platform WhatsApp, to neutralize them as potential competitors. The FTC initially approved both deals but now says they should be unwound.