Mike Masnick ✅Dec 16, 2022

Okay, I have written a post about Elon banning Mastodon on Twitter:

"Elon’s Commitment To Free Speech Rapidly Replaced By His Commitment To Blatant Hypocrisy: Bans The JoinMastodon Account"

https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/15/elons-commitment-to-free-speech-rapidly-replaced-by-his-commitment-to-blatant-hypocrisy-bans-the-joinmastodon-account/

Elon’s Commitment To Free Speech Rapidly Replaced By His Commitment To Blatant Hypocrisy: Bans The JoinMastodon Account

Oh, Elon. Following on yesterday’s nonsense in banning the ElonJet account that robotically posted the public information regarding Elon’s private plane flights, and then trying to just…

Techdirt
Show threadLeRoy WesterlingDec 16, 2022
@mmasnick this has to be an anticompetitive abuse of market power that opens Twitter and Musk up to legal action?
Show threadMike Masnick ✅Dec 16, 2022
@LeRoyWesterling anticompetition law is structured around antitrust. And I think you'd be hard pressed to declare Twitter a monopoly...
Show threadLeRoy WesterlingDec 16, 2022
@mmasnick IBM wasn’t a monopoly, strictly speaking. But 13 years of litigation altered their behavior…
Show threadMike Masnick ✅Dec 16, 2022
@LeRoyWesterling uh, IBM was WAY more of a monopolist than Twitter is.
Show threadLeRoy WesterlingDec 16, 2022

@mmasnick “If regulators could prove Twitter intentionally used the link blocking to preserve a form of market dominance and to keep a potential rival at bay, then they might have a case, legal experts say.”

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/16/tech/mastodon-twitter-links/index.html

Show threadLeRoy Westerling

@mmasnick “a dominant firm that’s said to have “market power” can potentially violate antitrust law if they refuse to deal with other parties.

This notion of a “duty to deal” is likely the most relevant to this situation, according to Charlotte Slaiman, competition policy director at the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge and a former FTC antitrust official.”

Dec 16, 2022 at 10:06pmWeb