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The FTC has refiled its case against Facebook

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One of the US government’s most powerful regulatory agencies, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/08/ftc-alleges-facebook-resorted-illegal-buy-or-bury-scheme-crush">has refiled its historic antitrust lawsuit against Facebook</a>, claiming it’s a monopoly that is hurting competition and harming consumers.
The move comes after a judge dismissed the FTC’s initial lawsuit <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/6/28/22554634/ftc-states-antitrust-cases-against-facebook-federal-court-dismissed-for-now">in June</a> for being too vague, which at the time was a big win for Facebook. In response, the FTC has refiled its lawsuit — and instead of taking a new approach, it’s sticking with its main arguments against Facebook but supporting them with more detail. It’s yet another sign that the <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/10/6/21505027/congress-big-tech-antitrust-report-facebook-google-amazon-apple-mark-zuckerberg-jeff-bezos-tim-cook">regulatory push to rein in</a> the power of Facebook and other major tech companies like Amazon and Apple isn’t slowing down when it encounters hurdles.
The amended suit includes new evidence about how the company allegedly engages in monopolistic behavior to crush its competitors and keep its users hooked on its platform without adequate pressure to improve the quality of its products. The crux of the FTC’s argument is that Facebook has failed to make meaningful innovations on its mobile app on its own in the past several years. Instead, it resorted to what the FTC says is an illegal “buy-or-bury” strategy in which it either shut out outside apps by limiting their access to the Facebook platform or acquired apps like Instagram and WhatsApp that were successful competitors.
The lawsuit alleges that Facebook also “lured” in third-party app developers that were competitive threats, such as Path and Circle, by inviting them to be a part of Facebook’s open platform. Once these developers became dependent on access Facebook had offered them, Facebook would then reverse course, the suit claims. Ultimately, the FTC alleges, all this harms consumers by keeping them trapped in Facebook’s social media ecosystem, with fewer alternative apps.
“Facebook lacked the business acumen and technical talent to survive the transition to mobile. After failing to compete with new innovators, Facebook illegally bought or buried them when their popularity became an existential threat,” said Holly Vedova, FTC Bureau of Competition acting director, in a press release announcing the lawsuit on Thursday.
A few hours after the new suit was filed on Thursday, Facebook <a href="https://twitter.com/fbnewsroom/status/1428436569267056648">tweeted</a> a thread in response.
The company argued that there is no “valid claim” that Facebook is a monopolist, and pointed out that the FTC cleared the company’s WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions when they originally happened.
“It is unfortunate that despite the court’s dismissal of the complaint and conclusion that it lacked the basis for a claim, the FTC has chosen to continue this meritless lawsuit,” Facebook wrote.
The company also planned a splashy product release of its <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/8/19/22631573/facebook-horizon-workrooms-virtual-reality">new virtual reality work conferencing app</a> — complete with Facebook CEO <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-launches-horizon-workrooms-virtual-reality-app/">Mark Zuckerberg doing a hit on CBS</a> — on the same morning that this new lawsuit was expected to drop. Ironically, Facebook’s new virtual reality conference tool is similar in many ways to existing software from smaller companies, which goes to show how existing antitrust laws don’t stop tech companies from copying each other in real time.
The new lawsuit also responded to Facebook’s petition for Lina Khan, the chair of the FTC, to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-seeks-recusal-of-ftc-chairwoman-in-antitrust-case-11626267605">recuse herself because of what the tech company claims to be a conflict of interest</a> due to her past academic work criticizing the market power of tech companies like Amazon. Some <a href="https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Letter%20to%20Amazon%20and%20Facebook%20re%20Petitions%20for%20Khan%20Recusal%20(8.4.21).pdf">lawmakers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have</a> criticized the push against Khan as an attempt to “bully” the FTC. But it doesn’t seem to be working — the FTC reiterated in the new suit that it doesn’t plan for Khan to recuse herself.
In the past, Facebook has said that the success of companies like TikTok and Snap proves there is healthy competition in the social media industry. This amended lawsuit, however, claims that TikTok is not actually Facebook’s competitor because it’s used primarily to “share video content to an audience that the poster does not personally know, rather than connect and personally engage with friends and family.”
It’s still far too soon to say if this lawsuit will succeed, and how meaningfully it may impact Facebook’s business. Facebook, which has ample resources to fight the case, will come up with the most compelling defense it can as to why it’s not actually a monopoly. But today’s lawsuit shows that the FTC, particularly with Khan at the helm, is not backing down.
Update August 19, 12:27 pm PT: This article was updated to include comment from Facebook, which it posted to Twitter.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/8/19/22632826/facebook-ftc-lawsuit-antitrust-monopoly-lina-khan-instagram-whatsapp-path-circle">https://www.vox.com/2021/8/19/22632826/facebook-ftc-lawsuit-antitrust-monopoly-lina-khan-instagram-whatsapp-path-circle</a>

vox The FTC has refiled its case against Facebook

One of the US government’s most powerful regulatory agencies, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), has refiled its historic antitrust lawsui...

Biden’s immigration policy is hampering Haiti’s recovery from back-to-back crises

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Already grappling with coronavirus, a political crisis stemming from President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination last month and resulting gang violence, Haiti was hit with a two-punch 7.2-magnitude earthquake and tropical depression this week, leaving <a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-caribbean-coronavirus-pandemic-haiti-earthquakes-93ff6b258c62b6a3246a1dd1d6307799">almost 2,000 dead</a> and thousands more injured or missing.
Thousands are without shelter because some <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/08.17.2021_USAID-BHA_Haiti_Earthquake_Fact_Sheet_2.pdf">83,000 homes</a> have been destroyed. International aid has been <a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-caribbean-coronavirus-pandemic-haiti-earthquakes-93ff6b258c62b6a3246a1dd1d6307799">slow to arrive</a>, delayed by Tropical Storm Grace’s heavy rains, and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/18/1028712071/the-haitian-governments-initial-earthquake-response-frustrates-many-in-haiti">some Haitians are frustrated</a> that their own government hasn’t done enough to help.
Also of little help has been the United States, <a href="https://www.vox.com/22629569/haiti-earthquake-tropical-storm-grace-neocolonialism-rebuilding">one of the contributors to Haiti’s political and economic troubles</a>, which has the ability to aid Haitians attempting to flee the country due to its three most recent crises, but has instead prevented them from accessing the protection to which many of them are entitled.
The Biden administration has <a href="https://apnews.com/article/haiti-earthquake-98f06a322e12f732f94485238d13558c">sent</a> a search and rescue team to the island and is transporting medical personnel to the most hard-hit areas and carrying out evacuations. It is also distributing <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/08.17.2021_USAID-BHA_Haiti_Earthquake_Fact_Sheet_2.pdf">much-needed supplies</a>, such as food, hygiene kits, and tents.
But the administration is still turning away Haitians who have chosen to flee in light of recent events. Thousands of Haitians are still stuck in Mexico on account of US policies, which currently allow asylum seekers and other migrants to be turned away on the basis of pandemic-related border restrictions, known as the Title 42 policy.
Many more Haitians may seek entry: Though it’s hard to estimate how many, the Darién Gap, a treacherous stretch of jungle and swamp on the border of Panama and Colombia that has functioned as a migrant corridor, has seen more crossings this year — <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2021-08-13/46k-migrants-risked-their-lives-crossing-dari-n-gap-2021-thats-more-last-three">at least 46,000</a> — than it has in the previous three years combined, and most of those attempting to navigate it are Haitians and Cubans.
The Biden administration has allowed more than 100,000 Haitians who arrived in the US before July 29, 2021, to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which is typically offered to citizens of countries suffering from natural disasters or armed conflict. Those people are able to live and work in the US free of fear of deportation.
But that doesn’t help those who might be continuing to leave the country due to the political fallout from Moïse’s July 7 assassination, or now, in the aftermath of Saturday’s earthquake. What’s more, Haitians who have been prohibited from entering the US under Title 42, for which experts say there is no public health justification, appear indefinitely trapped in Mexico. And the US has continued to carry out deportation flights of Haitians despite the turmoil.
At the same time, the Biden administration has discouraged Haitians, as well as Cubans fleeing their communist regime’s recent <a href="https://www.vox.com/22573703/biden-cuba-protests-trump">crackdown on anti-government protesters</a>, from trying to reach the US by boat. Officials have made clear that those who try will be intercepted by the US Coast Guard and will not be permitted to enter the US. Instead, they will either be repatriated back to Haiti or, if they can demonstrate the need for humanitarian protection, resettled in another country.
“The United States has deployed staff and resources to Haiti to help survivors of the earthquake, a vital step,” Wendy Young, the president of the immigrant legal aid group Kids in Need of Defense, said in a statement. “For the administration to then also send Haitians back into harm’s way would not only be senseless and cruel, but it would also deepen the grave humanitarian issues U.S. assistance is trying to address.”
The Biden administration could aid Haiti by rethinking policies that have barred Haitians from seeking refuge in the US. In light of the devastation from the earthquake and other recent crises, advocates are asking the administration to expand TPS for Haitians, indefinitely halt deportations and expulsions to the country, and allow Haitians at the US-Mexico border to temporarily enter the US on humanitarian parole.
These are all policy changes accomplishable through executive action. But the Biden administration has yet to try them, and its reticence may be undermining its Haitian foreign policy goals.
The Biden administration could easily expand TPS eligibility for Haitians who have continued to arrive in the US beyond the July 29 cutoff date. It has already done so in recent months, pushing back the original cutoff date of May 21, 2021.
Beyond offering Haitians affected by the earthquake a pathway to protection in the US, allowing those affected by the earthquake entry into the US would bolster the Biden administration’s efforts to help Haiti recover.
Though the administration has already <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/07/13/fact-sheet-u-s-assistance-to-haiti/">pledged millions</a> in government funds for relief, granting TPS to more Haitians would give them the ability to work in the US and send money to their families back home, hastening the rebuilding process and stimulating a struggling economy. That can be a powerful tool for rebuilding: Haiti received <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.CD.DT?locations=HT">$3.1 billion</a> in remittances in 2020 alone, which represents <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS?locations=HT">almost a quarter</a> of its GDP, and by some estimates, the US accounted for <a href="https://haitiantimes.com/2021/05/14/remittances-to-haiti-surged-in-2020-as-kidnappings-other-crises-rose/">more than 80 percent</a> of those remittances.
“An investment in the Haitian diaspora in the United States is an investment in a stable and strong Haiti and will benefit the United States,” Douglas Rivlin, a spokesperson for the immigrant advocacy group America’s Voice, said in a statement.
Without these remittances, Haiti’s economic development and infrastructure will suffer, which could drive more people to migrate to the US.
The Biden administration could also revive a parole program for Haitians arriving on the southern border and elsewhere in the US. Starting in 2014, the Obama administration allowed some 8,000 Haitians to come to the US under what is known as the <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/humanitarian-parole/the-haitian-family-reunification-parole-hfrp-program">Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program</a>. Certain eligible US citizens and green card holders could apply for parole on behalf of their family members in Haiti who already had pending visa applications, but would have otherwise had to face years-long wait times.
Parole is granted only in situations where the Department of Homeland Security finds there are pressing humanitarian concerns or determines doing so would significantly benefit the public. The program was designed to help Haiti recover from a devastating 2010 earthquake that displaced hundreds of thousands of people, in part by increasing the remittances that Haitian migrants could send to their family back home.
The Trump administration, however, terminated the program in 2019. Over 130 human rights, humanitarian, immigration, and women’s rights organizations have <a href="https://www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Joint-Letter-to-President-Biden-DHS-DPC-NSA-and-DOS-on-Immediate-Protection-of-Haitians-Inside-the-U.S.-and-at-the-Southern-Border-After-Assassination-of-President-Moi%CC%88se.pdf">supported</a> reviving the program, but the groups are also calling for an <a href="https://www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Joint-Letter-to-President-Biden-DHS-DPC-NSA-and-DOS-on-Immediate-Protection-of-Haitians-Inside-the-U.S.-and-at-the-Southern-Border-After-Assassination-of-President-Moi%CC%88se.pdf">even broader parole program</a> that would apply to any Haitian arriving at a US border.
The US continues to turn away the majority of migrants arriving at the southern border — including Haitians — under pandemic-related border restrictions, with exceptions for unaccompanied minors, some families from Central America with young children, and people who were sent back to Mexico to wait for their court hearings in the US.
Last March, at the outset of the pandemic, then-President Donald Trump invoked Title 42, a section of the Public Health Service Act that allows the US government to temporarily block noncitizens from entering the US “when doing so is required in the interest of public health.”
The policy has allowed US immigration officials at the southern border to rapidly expel <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics/title-8-and-title-42-statistics">more than a million</a> migrants since the outset of the pandemic. Though scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) opposed the policy initially, arguing there was no legitimate public health rationale behind it, then-Vice President Mike Pence <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-pandemics-public-health-new-york-health-4ef0c6c5263815a26f8aa17f6ea490ae">ordered</a> the agency to follow through with it anyway.
What’s more, public health experts have <a href="https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/research/program-forced-migration-and-health/letter-acting-hhs-secretary-cochran-and-cdc-director-walensky">repeatedly</a> <a href="https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/research/program-forced-migration-and-health/july-2021-letter-hhs-secretary-becerra-and-cdc-director-walensky-title-42-order">said</a> that migrants can be processed and admitted to the US safely. Indeed, this is <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22398712/biden-title-42-migrant-border-expel">already occurring on a small scale</a> as some migrants are being tested for Covid-19 with private funds before they are allowed to cross the border.
Biden has not overturned the policy, despite outcry from immigrant advocates and humanitarian groups who say it prevents migrants from exercising their right under US and international law to seek asylum.
Yet the CDC nevertheless issued an <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s080221-southern-northen-land-borders-order-extended.html">updated order</a> recently saying that the policy would remain in effect until the agency’s director determines that migrants no longer pose a “serious danger to the public health” in terms of spreading Covid-19. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security, meanwhile, have continued to insist that they are merely deferring to public health experts at the CDC in opting to continue enforcing the policy.
But keeping the order in place has serious humanitarian consequences for migrants trapped in Mexico.
Haitian Bridge Alliance, an organization that provides services to Black migrants at the border, estimates that <a href="https://www.borderreport.com/hot-topics/immigration/presidents-murder-shores-up-credible-fear-case-for-thousands-of-haitian-asylum-seekers-activists-say/">5,000 to 10,000</a> Haitians are still stuck in Mexico on account of Title 42, and most of them have been waiting between 18 months and five years for a chance to apply for asylum. They have reported facing discrimination in Mexican border towns, where they fear retribution from police or local armed groups.
“The administration should ensure that all Haitians and those seeking protection whose lives and safety are at risk are afforded the opportunity to request protection at our borders and at all ports of entry to the United States,” Young said.
Many Central American families have been sent back to Mexico after being expelled at the US border. But many Haitian families have been <a href="https://time.com/6080579/haitian-migrants-tijuana-us-policy/">sent back to their home country</a> directly because the Mexican government has refused to take them back. The Biden administration <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/05/us-haiti-deportation-flights-suspended-ice-immigration">briefly paused deportation flights</a> to Haiti earlier this year due to escalating political violence. But officials have since chartered dozens of deportation flights to Haiti, despite the fact that many of those being sent back had no communities to return to.
One plane, carrying more than 130 people, including children as young as two, landed two days before the earthquake, said Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance. She said that one recent deportee seeking help from her organization had gone to live with his sister, his only family member left in Haiti, but that sister, along with her husband and two children died in the earthquake.
There are <a href="https://twitter.com/priscialva/status/1427686224991559704?s=20">no US deportation flights scheduled this week</a>, but they could resume anytime thereafter. Jozef said that she wants a more long-term commitment — not one that lasts just a few days or weeks, which is not enough time for the conditions on the ground in Haiti to meaningfully improve. The administration has already acknowledged how dire those conditions are when it announced that it was partially expanding its Haitian TPS program last month.
“The Biden Administration should immediately cease deporting and expelling Haitians so as not to cause additional and needless suffering and harm,” Young said.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22630728/haiti-earthquake-immigration-biden-tps">https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22630728/haiti-earthquake-immigration-biden-tps</a>

vox Biden’s immigration policy is hampering Haiti’s recovery from back-to-back crises

Already grappling with coronavirus, a political crisis stemming from President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination last month and resulting gang ...

VIDEO: Taliban Beheads Young Boy While His Screaming Mother, Who Pleads For His Life, Is Viciously Being Beaten By The Taliban

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By the Shoebats 
The demonic saga of the unraveling situation in Afghanistan reveals a horrid life. A young boy is being beheaded as his mother is pleading for her life. She is being beaten as her son’s throat is being cut. As the boy breathes his last breaths, the mother lies on the ground next to him, fainted. This horror is seen as a voice screams “Allahu Akbar” with a demonic tone, and the recitation of Koranic verses resound from a loud speaker. Watch the horror for yourself:
 
 
source <a href="https://shoebat.com/2021/08/19/video-taliban-beheads-young-boy-while-his-screaming-mother-who-pleads-for-his-life-is-viciously-being-beaten-by-the-taliban/">https://shoebat.com/2021/08/19/video-taliban-beheads-young-boy-while-his-screaming-mother-who-pleads-for-his-life-is-viciously-being-beaten-by-the-taliban/</a>

armageddon VIDEO: Taliban Beheads Young Boy While His Screaming Mother, Who Pleads For His Life, Is Viciously Being Beaten By The Taliban

By the Shoebats The demonic saga of the unraveling situation in Afghanistan reveals a horrid life. A young boy is being beheaded as his mo...

Taliban Thugs Go To Woman’s House And Order Her To Cook For Fifteen Taliban Fighters. She Refuses And They Beat Her To Death

<div><img class="ff-og-image-inserted" src="https://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/My-Post-2021-08-19T220824.057.jpg" /></div>
Taliban thug went to a woman’s home and demanded that she cook for 15 of their fighters, and when she refused they beat her to death, as we read in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/17/asia/afghanistan-women-taliban-intl-hnk-dst/index.html">CNN</a>:
<blockquote readability="20">
Najia’s daughter Manizha, 25, knew they were coming — her mother had told her they’d done the same thing the previous three days, demanding that she cook food for up to 15 fighters.
“My mother told them, ‘I am poor, how can I cook for you?'” said Manizha. “(The Taliban) started beating her. My mother collapsed, and they hit her with their guns — AK47s.”
Manizha said she yelled at the fighters to stop. They paused for a moment before throwing a grenade into the next room and fleeing as the flames spread, she said. The mother of four died from the beating.
</blockquote>
 
 
source <a href="https://shoebat.com/2021/08/19/taliban-thugs-go-to-womans-house-and-order-her-to-cook-for-fifteen-taliban-fighters-she-refuses-and-they-beat-her-to-death/">https://shoebat.com/2021/08/19/taliban-thugs-go-to-womans-house-and-order-her-to-cook-for-fifteen-taliban-fighters-she-refuses-and-they-beat-her-to-death/</a>

armageddon Taliban Thugs Go To Woman’s House And Order Her To Cook For Fifteen Taliban Fighters. She Refuses And They Beat Her To Death

Taliban thug went to a woman’s home and demanded that she cook for 15 of their fighters, and when she refused they beat her to death, as we...

Taliban Terrorists Are Going Door To Door, Taking People Out Of Their Homes And Executing Them

armageddon Taliban Terrorists Are Going Door To Door, Taking People Out Of Their Homes And Executing Them

More information is coming out of Afghanistan, revealing the horrors that we all are occurring. A video was just recently released from Rad...

The Taliban Kidnaps A Man’s Son And Decapitates Him “As If He Was A Sheep”

<div><img class="ff-og-image-inserted" src="https://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/afghan-beheading.jpg" /></div>
The Taliban captured a man’s son and beheaded him “as if he was a sheep”, in yet another story detailing the horrors of Afghanistan. As we read in <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210810-afghans-flee-horrors-as-taliban-sweep-through-the-north">Francis 24</a>:
<blockquote readability="43">
Thousands of Afghans are fleeing Taliban-captured cities in the north, some telling of brutal treatment by the insurgents: bodies left in the streets, girls being kidnapped to become Taliban brides, and young men press-ganged into fighting.
Many have arrived in Kabul just this week, following a five-day Taliban blitz that has seen them seize eight provincial capitals — some with barely a fight.
But where there has been resistance, those who fled described harrowing scenes.
“We saw bodies lying near the prison… there were dogs next to them,” said Friba, 36, a widow who fled Kunduz Sunday with her six children as the Taliban took the city.
Like many who spoke to AFP, she asked not to be fully identified for fear of reprisal.
…
“Three days ago the Taliban killed a barber because they thought he was working for the government. But he was just a barber,” said Mirwais Khan Amiri, 22, whose car was struck by bullets as he fled Kunduz three days ago.
“They killed people who worked in government even if they had quit four to five years ago.”
Another evacuee from Kunduz, Abdulmanan, told AFP the Taliban beheaded his son.
“They took him… as if he was a sheep and cut off his head with a knife and threw it away,” he said.
</blockquote>
 
 
source <a href="https://shoebat.com/2021/08/19/the-taliban-kidnaps-a-mans-son-and-decapitates-him-as-if-he-was-a-sheep/">https://shoebat.com/2021/08/19/the-taliban-kidnaps-a-mans-son-and-decapitates-him-as-if-he-was-a-sheep/</a>

armageddon The Taliban Kidnaps A Man’s Son And Decapitates Him “As If He Was A Sheep”

The Taliban captured a man’s son and beheaded him “as if he was a sheep”, in yet another story detailing the horrors of Afghanistan. As we ...