In case you thought the “techlash” threatening Big Tech companies with greater regulation was largely driven by former President Trump’s bluster, think again. An antitrust case in the United Kingdom could force an American company to divest a valuable acquisition, and create a chilling effect that could hinder American innovation and the launching of startups.
The company in question is Facebook, which is hardly anyone’s cup of tea these days. But, as with free speech, it is when the rights of those we dislike are under attack that those rights most need defending. The right in question is its right to buy out a smaller company, in this case Giphy, a search engine and repository of GIF files — those little animated and captioned photographs that are ubiquitous on social media.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the British equivalent of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), says that Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy last year may have hurt competition (its current findings are preliminary) and that it may require Facebook to divest Giphy.
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