A senior Facebook executive told Australian media companies that if they didn’t cooperate with the social network, their businesses would die.
According to a report by The Australian, Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships, told a group of more than 20 broadcasters and publishers that she wanted to help media companies develop sustainable business models through the platform.
“We will help you revitalise journalism … in a few years the reverse looks like I’ll be holding your hands with your dying business like in a hospice,” she said, in comments corroborated by five people who attended the meeting in Sydney on Tuesday.
The Australian also reported that Brown said that Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, “doesn’t care about publishers but is giving me a lot of leeway and concessions to make these changes”, although both Facebook and Brown vehemently deny this comment was made, referring to a transcript they have from the meeting.
Facebook would not release the transcript from the meeting.
Yes, this is a reason to break up the company. This is way too much power for a private actor to have.
Also, I will note something that Yves Smith has said frequently, “If your business depends on a platform, your business is already dead.” (The media graveyard is littered with the remnants of companies that have come to depend on a 3rd party platform.)