#BeingBlackOnline: Acquire, Copy, Kill [Video]

#BigTech gets bigger & bigger every year. Companies like Facebook purchase competitors like Instagram, and these mergers ruin the apps we’ve come to love, increase the hoops Black-owned small businesses jump through, eliminate jobs in our communities, and infringe on workers’ rights.

COC’s #BeingBlackOnline series: Acquire, Copy, Kill breaks down why we need antitrust reform that prevents these acquisitions & limits corporate power. #TechTuesday

Demand Congress to step in and take action to limit tech’s corporate power by passing the Prohibiting Anticompetitive Mergers Act: https://coc.is/CosolidatedCorporatePower

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

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have you ever wondered why when an app
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gets popular facebook seems to take an
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interest in it and suddenly the popular
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app’s newest features appear within
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facebook
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it used to be if you can’t beat them
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join them
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but with facebook it’s if you can’t beat
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them force them to join you rep pramila
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jayapal aptly named this strategy that
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we see play out over and over again
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acquire copy kill
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as facebook acquires copies and kills
0:27
its competition it takes over more and
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more of the social media market and it’s
0:32
not just facebook google apple and
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amazon all use this ruthless strategy to
0:38
crush other businesses instead of fairly
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competing to be the best product
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acquire when facebook acquires a
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competitor like instagram all of your
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content and followers are absorbed into
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the facebook machine it no longer has to
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compete for your competition because it
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now owns your accounts on both platforms
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but what happens if facebook doesn’t buy
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the company
1:00
copy
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facebook has no problem stealing we’ve
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seen this strategy of why buy it when
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you can clone it play out on its
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instagram app it took the popularity of
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snapchat and turned it into instagram
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stories tick-tock is now being copied by
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instagram reels and instagram live is a
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rip-off of periscope
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cloning and conquering its rivals is how
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facebook’s control over our lives grows
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bigger and popular apps we used to like
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are quietly disappeared
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kill
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remember vine
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vine depended on access to facebook’s
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data in order to find friends when
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facebook decided to cut their access
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they stopped vine’s quick growth and the
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app soon lost its user base and was
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shuttered by twitter forcing vine
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creators to migrate to instagram’s video
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features so it seems as though this
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acquire copy kill strategy is working
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for facebook as it seeks to become the
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center of our communication and control
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all of our data on its quest for world
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domination so what does this mean for
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you
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if facebook succeeds in monopolizing
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social media we’ll all be stuck playing
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by their rules rules that already don’t
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do enough to protect against hate speech
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harassment and disinformation
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near total control of social media would
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also make it difficult for competitor
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apps to enter the market without options
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for which apps to use new black creators
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will struggle to break through gain
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traction and build a following
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we need a more open marketplace where
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platforms have to compete to create
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safer more inclusive and enjoyable
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experiences for users
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by passing antitrust reform and
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resourcing robust enforcement facebook
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will be prevented from acquiring copying
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and killing its competition with this
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freedom black users will be able to
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innovate
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join color of change in calling for
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antitrust laws with racial justice
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equities and robust enforcement to
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protect our communities from this type
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of anti-competitive behavior

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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