What A Day - Zuck The Police

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

Facebook is facing two major antitrust lawsuits, one from the Federal Trade Commission and one from nearly every state in the country. The suits argue that Facebook has turned itself into a social media monopoly by purchasing or unfairly stifling its rivals. As a solution, the FTC is calling for the company to break off WhatsApp and Instagram.An FDA panel is meeting today to vote on whether to approve Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine. Meanwhile, Canada has now approved it, and the UK is now recommending that people prone to severe allergic reactions hold off on getting it.And in headlines: another Trump EPA win for polluters, DoorDash has a banger IPO, and there’s more stuff than life now on Earth.

It's Thursday, December 10th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick, and this is What a Day, where we eat, sleep, and breathe gift guides. Yeah, I'm reading approximately 10 gift guides a night, specifically tailored to types of people who I'm honestly not friends with. 57 gifts for the left-handed, right-brained girlfriend who is also a freelance train conductor. Show it to me. I need it. Is that just your girlfriend? Yes.

On today's show, what to expect from the FDA's vaccine meeting today, then some headlines. But first, the latest. For nearly a decade, Facebook has used its dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals and snuff out competition, all at the expense of everyday users. That was New York Attorney General Letitia James announcing her lawsuit against Facebook. We've been talking about tech monopolies and antitrust investigations into some of the largest companies all year. And yesterday, Facebook became the latest target with a massive set of lawsuits against the social network. Sorry, Jesse Eisenberg, but your legacy is no longer intact. So these lawsuits were brought by basically every state in the country,

as well as the federal government. What did we learn? Yeah, so there are two suits that were filed. One is from the Federal Trade Commission, and the other is led by James and incorporates about 48 attorneys general across the country. If you're doing something that's getting that many people to sue you, it doesn't seem all that great. Both suits are basically arguing that Facebook has turned itself into a social media monopoly by purchasing rivals, which they say is a way to illegally eliminate competition. And that hurts users by limiting their choices. More specifically, the rivals they're talking about are Instagram,

which Facebook purchased for $1 billion in 2012, and WhatsApp, which Facebook bought for $19 billion in 2013. And they're calling for Facebook to actually break off these companies and to put in place limitations on future deals like this. So that's a major step further than the recent federal antitrust lawsuit against Google over its search dominance, which didn't actually push for a full breakup. Well, that is a lot. Honestly, I hope they break them all up. But it's probably the biggest existential threat Facebook has faced at least since the Cambridge Analytica fiasco in 2016. And we can expect that the company is going to put up a fight. So what have they said so far? Yeah, they're definitely going to battle it tooth and nail and with a lot of money.

Facebook's general counsel said in a statement given to The New York Times that the FTC cleared these acquisitions when they were happening. That's one of their defenses that during the Obama administration that happened and that the government was, quote, sending a chilling warning to American business that no sale is ever final. OK, Facebook has been arguing that their actions didn't stifle the broader social media market with apps like TikTok becoming popular in recent years. But according to the Washington Post, the FTC complaint relies at times on things that Mark Zuckerberg wrote in the past or other company emails that came out in investigations this year, namely that before buying Instagram, Facebook had fallen, quote, very behind in photo sharing

and that the acquisition of the company could help. It also says that Facebook threatened Instagram and its founders if they didn't agree to sell. And the threat there kind of being that Facebook would simply copy their product features. This is something Facebook also gets criticized for like how they recently rolled out Reels, which is very similar to TikTok,

and Instagram Stories, which is basically Snapchat, right? Some of these topics have been previously discussed during the course of House investigations, and Zuckerberg actually talked about his view of Instagram as a, quote, competitor during questioning this summer to Congress. Mr. Zuckerberg, what did you mean when you answered that the purpose of the deal was to neutralize a potential competitor? Congressman, well, those aren't my words, but yes, I've been clear that Instagram was a competitor in the space of mobile photo sharing.

There were a lot of others at the time. They competed with apps like DiscoCam and PickPlease and companies like Path. It was a subset of the overall space of connecting that we exist in. And by having them join us, they certainly went from being a competitor in the space of being a mobile camera to an app that we could help grow and help get more people to be able to use and be on our team. And I think that's been wildly successful. Yeah. I mean, you heard him say it. The FTC said that Zuckerberg, quote,

recognized Instagram as a vibrant and innovative personal social network and an existential threat to Facebook's monopoly power. And just to place this all back in time, this was all happening in the early 2010s, about the same time Throwback Thursdays arrived on our phones and revolutionized the way we looked for attention. Yeah, I'm still trying to get that good, good attention. Well, that's the Instagram piece. Then there's also WhatsApp. That's right. So again, the post was citing

emails here with Zuckerberg saying that WhatsApp and other messaging services were, quote, the next biggest consumer risk for Facebook. Before the acquisition even happened, WhatsApp was beating out Facebook for daily messages sent. And per the report, the state investigators in these suits also said that when Facebook acquired WhatsApp, they made a promise to keep the app independent as well as maintain WhatsApp's strong privacy protections in messaging. But they also say Facebook changed their position on that years after the deal was approved. Then there is more. There's always more. The FTC also said that Facebook withheld access to its massive trove of user data in order to hurt other companies. For example,

the complaint says they did this with our dearly departed Vine by cutting it off from various Facebook features like accessing friend lists, which the FTC said kept it from growing more. Man, I miss Vine. And I do blame Facebook now. So what do we expect next? Well, Facebook is certainly going to have more to say and do soon. And this could stretch on for years. But it is conceivably possible that they'll have to divest from WhatsApp and Instagram, which is what the FTC is seeking here, or that they will have to change their practices in other ways.

Big picture takeaway, though, with congressional investigations, federal and state lawsuits into these major tech companies, it really does seem like there's a pretty sizable shift in how aggressively changes are being sought. In other acquisition news, countries are continuing to acquire vaccines. That didn't totally work, but it gets us from point A to point B. Akilah, what is the latest on vaccines? I love that segue. Well, the FDA is meeting today and on the docket is a panel vote on whether or not to approve the Pfizer vaccine in the US. It's the beginning of the final steps and if approved for emergency use, some states will be receiving that vaccine as early as tomorrow. And a lot of states are already getting shipments of the vaccine in advance of the decision so they can hit the ground running

on their rollout. The meeting may last all day. It'll be webcast live and the expert committee will review data from Pfizer and BioNTech and they could sign off by the end of the day. Then on Friday and Sunday, another committee, this time from the CDC, will meet to officially determine who gets the first doses. Fingers crossed that they choose me because I sent them my resume. I think I'm a good candidate. Yeah, we reviewed all the qualifications ahead of time and they were spotless. But as we've been saying, this is all happening at a very critical time. Just yesterday, the United States hit another single-day record for coronavirus deaths. It is very, very bleak out there. But regarding the Pfizer vaccine, there was some news yesterday about potential issues. Yeah, that's right. So in the UK,

they're now recommending that people prone to severe allergic reactions shouldn't get the vaccine for now. Their regulators are investigating a couple instances of allergic reactions and people who got the vaccine on Tuesday. And there hasn't been a ton of information on exactly what kinds of allergic reactions may be red flags, so TBD there, but Canada approved the Pfizer vaccine yesterday. So if there's more information on the safety of it in people with allergies, it'll be forthcoming. In a conversation with Sanjay Gupta on CNN yesterday, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that this complication may affect a large amount of people and went on to say, quote, if I were a person that had an underlying

allergic tendency, I might want to be prepared that I might get a reaction and therefore be ready to treat it. So I guess have some Benadryl or your EpiPen on deck, but that's where we're at. But to end on a hopeful note, Fauci did say that the other vaccines may be able to account for this rare-ish sort of side effect. That is great to hear. And then on that note, what is the latest on other vaccines? All right. So next week, the Moderna vaccine will undergo the same FDA review process as the Pfizer vaccine, and the United Arab Emirates approved a vaccine out of China yesterday. That vaccine is said to be 86% effective and could be a much more affordable route for smaller countries versus one shipped out from America. The details around the vaccine beyond that are kind of murky, though.

Chinese officials and Sinopharm, the state-owned maker of the vaccine, were silent yesterday. No one heard anything from them. And scientists noted that the announcement was lacking in data and other critical details. So really big TBD there. We'll keep you posted on all the vaccine news, but that's the latest for now. It's Thursday, WOD Squad. And for today's Tim Check, we're talking about a vaccine with a serious health warning. This week, the head of a consumer health watchdog in Russia said of the country's Sputnik 5 vaccine that people should stop drinking alcohol for two weeks before they get it and hold off for 42 days after their injections. This advice was contradicted by the vaccine's developer, who said those who get it only need

to stop drinking for three days before and after their shots for it to be most effective. That could still be difficult for some people in Russia, though, like a Moscow resident interviewed by Reuters, who said, quote, I booze like there was no tomorrow between the first and second jabs and I've got antibodies coming out of my ears. So giddy. A lot for WOD squatters in Russia to think about. But my question for you, besides alcohol, what would be the hardest thing for you to give up for the vaccine? I would say that coffee would be harder than alcohol. No questions asked. like if this time span were what is this like this is six weeks overall or something without coffee i yeah i i don't think i think that the the like mental state that i would be in i i honestly don't know if it would be all that better than not having said Sputnik five vaccine.

I gotta be like totally on it. Like I, I would be, I would be a wreck. Are you one of those people that like lives on iced coffee all day? No, no, no.

I've gotten better at like siphoning off such that like, it's not like, it's not like having it like water, but like, let's say like I couldn't start the day without it. There, there would be no, like there'd just be no life, I think. You couldn't make it.

No, I truly, it's sad. It's a sad dependency, but like, I think that I wouldn't sit upright for like the day. So, yeah. I'm sorry to hear that. I feel like, you know, I have a totally different answer, but I think that like coffee for me is just like a fun additive thing. I can kind of like find my footing by 3 PM, but the truth is I start late. And I think that that's the answer. If I started at like 7 AM, like normal people, I'd be like, I'm sorry. I can't talk to people or listen. I wish, I wish I were there. Uh, I wish that like, you know, people, people, you and other people on our team are like, yeah, like, having a little bit of espresso.

Like, whoa, I feel so crazy right now. Boy, wish it were me. Wish it were me. Deeply jealous. But it's not. Okay, so it's not coffee for you. What are you thinking about here? What's the problem?

I'm thinking about that delicious legal Mary Jane. That marijuana. You know, it stays in your body longer than alcohol and coffee. And so I imagine they'd make you go cold turkey like a month out and sleeping in a pandemic when there's so many horrible things to think about. Couldn't be me, not without my best friend weed. So, yeah, being completely honest honest i think that it would be kind of difficult for me uh you know i could probably make it a week but maybe a weekend i'd be like all right i'm very tired and if i don't get to sleep soon i'm gonna lose my mind like i cannot take it there's too much bad news i have to spiral for hours and then the sun will come up

i like that these are totally like reverse energies. Like one is about sort of like winding down and the other is about like getting up. But I know I really I really like deeply respect that. I think it's like it's it's not ever truly been all that for me. But like I yeah, I mean, I think it's like it's like insane that it's insane that it would be a question that you couldn't that you couldn't have that. But you couldn't just enjoy your damn sleep yeah josh gondelman had a funny tweet this week where he said i wish that i could sleep all the time but also be aware of everything that's happening and i'm like i think that that's my vibe it's like yes i would love to be asleep but i actually have to think about the world right if you could just have the stuff like sort of put in

matrix style without having to like process it or emote about it. Amazing. A dream. Well, just like that, we've checked our temps. Science, listen to us. Make it so that we can be aware of things, but also sleep easily. Stay safe and we'll be back after some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines.

Headlines. Over a month has passed since Trump lost the presidential election, but he and his Republican peers are continuing their historic effort to live in a different reality. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court flat out rejected an effort by Republican Representative Mike Kelly to overturn the results of the election in Pennsylvania. The state Supreme Court had dismissed the lawsuit last month, and Tuesday's decision signals that the nation's highest court doesn't even want to get involved. They don't even know her. That signal seemed to go unnoticed by Trump and 17 Republican attorneys general who said yesterday that they would support a motion by Texas AG Ken Paxton to sue several states that Biden won. If Paxton, who is being investigated by the FBI himself, follows through, that lawsuit, like a majority of the other suits filed to contest the results, will probably go nowhere.

Meanwhile, a new NPR poll found that 61 percent of Americans trust the results of the election, showing Biden's win, but only 24 percent of Republicans do. Man, Republicans. What is going on with y'all? The Trump administration only has a few weeks left to do environmental harm, and they're gonna make the most of it. Yesterday, Trump's Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule that will make it harder for the agency to strengthen measures combating air pollution and the climate crisis. The rule requires officials to do cost-benefit analyses when proposing rule changes under the Clean Air Act, but it blocks them from considering secondary public health benefits. In other words, the economic cost of policy changes will have to be considered by the EPA, but things like illnesses and deaths that will result from those decisions cannot.

Many critics of the move point out that the EPA is prioritizing profits over air and water quality and are expecting Biden to reverse the decision once he's in office. I am too. I have a long list of shit that Biden's just got to undo quickly. Yes, we will be submitting that very soon. Joseph Robinette Biden. In a year that saw food delivery workers be honored as the new first responders, DoorDash has made an extremely successful initial public offering, with its stock price rising 86% in its first day of trading. DoorDash raised $3.4 billion yesterday, making their IPO the year's largest, despite the fact that the company is not profitable

and lost $149 million in the first nine months of the year. The company did grow in those same nine months with its revenue tripling compared to 2019. And it also went to fight in November to pass a California ballot proposition that will widen their margins by exempting them from paying benefits to drivers. Look for DoorDash and their competitors to push more laws like that nationwide as our government slowly gets taken over by ill-intentioned computers. Apps like DoorDash have been a lifeline for restaurants during suspensions of in-person dining, but it's a lifeline from a boat speeding towards a large financial sea monster

since the apps typically take between 20% and 30% of what customers pay for their meals. What is happening on Earth? Everything is bad. Well, we officially lost the war against stuff as human-made materials now likely weigh more than all life on Earth. A newly published article in Nature estimates that the total mass of concrete, bricks, asphalt and everything else we've made to be 1.1 teratons, which is more than the mass of all animals and humans combined. I think it matters whether that second number was calculated before or after quarantine, but I won't question the scientists.

Anyway, thanks to all whales, elephants, and mature rhinos for doing your part in this noble fight. But it's hard when we're up against, say, big malls in Dubai that have ski resorts inside them. 120 years ago, at the start of the 20th century, human-made materials were just 3% of the weight of all living biomass, but things accelerated greatly since then.

At our current rate, we're set to exceed three teratons of human-made materials by 2040. Good God. That's why I'm formally nominating Marie Kondo to be our world dictator. Come on, Marie. Help us get rid of this stuff. Rule with an organized iron fist, Marie. None of it brings joy. Those are the headlines. One last thing before we go. Today is the last full day to place your holiday merch orders in order to get them by December 24th. If that's the date that you're aiming for, I don't know how you live your life.

You can find a holiday themed merch from your favorite cricket shows, including ours. That's right. There's a one a day candle desk calendar and holiday sweater. I'm literally wearing the holiday sweater right now. It's so soft. It's so festive. Everybody loves it.

It's got the little coffee mugs. You know you want one. Quit playing. So head to crooked.com slash store to get your orders in. That is all for today. If you'd like to show me, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, join us in remembering Vine, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just the personal liability waiver at the Dubai indoor ski mall like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe.

I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And don't drink and vaccinate. Come on, guys. You can make it. Yeah. Listen, just have one at a time. You know, sometimes we can't combine things and that's just the way it is.

If you're in America, you probably have like several months to keep drinking. Yeah, right. Quite frankly. Our head writer is John Milstein and our executive producers are Katie Long, Akilah Hughes and me. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kshaka.