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Tommaso Valletti
@TomValletti
, 7 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
1/ LIBRA THREAD. People are discussing MANY relevant aspects. FED Jerome Powell has “serious concerns”. @matthewstoller has written this interesting piece.


BUT.
Let me offer a personal, additional, possibly narrow, view looking at COMPETITION issues.
2/ My idea has already been bashed, both left (but guys: mine is an ADDITIONAL concern) and Koch brothers-funded right.

[Boys, I do have reply tweets, don’t I?]
3/ Here’s my argument. FB makes money, a lot of money, from ADS - period. Behind those ads are products we buy. With Libra, FB can do 2 things: match data of its ecosystem with Libra data on individual daily income, individual purchases etc. Not even credit cards have that info.
4/ Hyper-targeted ads go to a new level. In fact, FB may even not need ads at all: they can sell us directly PRODUCTS. They want to be like WeChat: we spend all our time on their properties, and sell us the most expensive thing they can at each point in time.
5/ Either they screw advertisers (who then screw us) or they screw us directly. Too simplistic?

Then check this out. Leaked emails by Zuckerberg. The press focused on privacy. But he also discusses anti-competitive activities he hopes to engage in with a payments strategy.
6/ Of course this was 6+ years ago. But these guys move fast!

As to their promise that they would NOT link FB and Libra data? Well, I leave it to you. Either you listen @nick_clegg

7/7 Or once again you try to think harder. FB said the FB/WA/IG integration “might “ happen in the future (despite their past promises not to do it). Yet last week (July 3) there was a simultaneous outage across FB/WA/IG. Is this not telling us something?

Enough for today. Ciao
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More from @TomValletti see all

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Tommaso Valletti
@TomValletti
Little THREAD on academic research in economics and GAFAs.

Last night I asked myself: how much EMPIRICAL research has been published in ECONOMICS using data from GAFAs? The answer is: almost NONE.
Why GAFAs? Well, we talk a LOT about them in competition circles. They are among the very top for market capitalisation. They have TONS of data. This SHOULD attract the attention of economists!
Selection criteria? Papers published in top 5 econ journals over the past 5 years (May 14-June 19) using microdata from GAFAs. A few THOUSAND articles. Why top 5? Because that’s what you need for an academic career. Why past 5 years? Because I had only 1 hour free...
Read 9 tweets
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Tommaso Valletti
@TomValletti
Very interesting and extensive independent report done for @CMAgovUK evaluating past merger decisions in the digital sector
bit.ly/2HRfBiD

1/
Facebook/Instagram problematic: too much weigh put on functionality offered on the users’ side of the market. The Authorities missed the role these functionalities perform in platform’s monetization strategy.

2/
Google/Waze also problematic: Authorities focussed their theory of harm on the users’ side of the market, omitting to explore how services were monetized: users’ movements behaviour reveals additional information on their preferences, allowing better targeted ads.

3/
Read 6 tweets
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Tommaso Valletti
@TomValletti
The @EU_Competition digital report is out! Many, many thanks to @jcremer @yvesalexandre and Heike. Here's my reading on the concrete suggestions for adapting competition policy (THREAD).
1) Consumer welfare standard: Under-enforcement is the problem in the digital world. Even if consumer harm cannot be measured, platforms’ strategies to reduce competition should be forbidden in the absence of clear efficiency gains
2) Market definition: Less emphasis should be put on market definition, more on theories of harm. Think of aftermarkets if there is lock-in.
3) Market power: think of “intermediation power” and platforms being “unavoidable trading partners.”
Read 8 tweets

Related threads

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The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸
@ColumbiaBugle
#Thread President Trump discussing immigration during Press Conference after G20 Summit.

"[Mexico has] very very tough immigration. They don't have the kind of stupidity that we have, where somebody touches one foot on our sand and we now have to bring them into a court." 1/
Trump on the border crisis: "If you have a child it's much easier to come into our country...so we have these kids who have been absolutely abused, horribly abused, & we could stop that with a minor change in the law. It's a terrible thing that [Congress is] not doing it." 2/
President Trump explaining how walls and a stronger immigration system (ending the magnet) would be vital in helping end the humanitarian crisis at the border. 3/
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the willowness
@salixlucida
#Libra thread:

#KYC requirement could as well be what kills Libra, considering that #Facebook and Libra are very likely to implement US and EU style of KYC/AML regulations that assume everyone has a national/state ID, SSN (or equivalent), and utility bills in their own names. >
> This requirement excludes over 80% of the world’s population from banking and global economy, as people in developing countries often do not have means to obtain such documents - or, the documents are so primitive that would not meet a U.S./E.U./G7/OECD standard of KYC. >
> This also holds true with migrants, undocumented immigrants, and refugees in “first-world” countries, as well. >
Read 8 tweets
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People
@peoplepubit
Rapidamente hai cominciato a lavorare meno ore e a guadagnare meno soldi. A Milano 960 euro non bastano se hai un figlio, una separazione alle spalle.

Questa è la storia di Baggio, raccontata nel primo capitolo di "Senza più valore", di @yes_political.

#thread #people
Hai provato a protestare, al telefono, con il tuo referente di zona. Lui non ti ha quasi fatto parlare. È l’algoritmo. Non dipende da lui. Ti ha fatto incazzare. Non ti ascolta. Non capisce che quei soldi ti servono.

#thread #people
Lui ti ha detto allora che se avessi continuato a scocciarlo, ti avrebbe sloggato. Non lui direttamente, ma il sistema. Lui è obbligato, dice.

Deve registrare la chiamata. Deve registrare il tuo comportamento. «Aggressivo» dice. «Aggressivo de che?» gli rispondi.

#thread
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Cas Mudde 📢
@CasMudde
This is an interesting article about Jewish-American "political consultants" who are allegedly behind Orbán's anti-Soros campaign. But it totally oversells their importance, similarly to media coverage of Bannon. Some quick thoughts #thread buzzfeednews.com/article/hnsgra…
1. I lived in Hungary in 1998-9, during first Orbán government, and (antisemitic) opposition to Soros was already widespread within Hungarian far right (including MIÉP).
2. While Fidesz was not radical right yet, it had a major problem with antisemitism within its party as well as an (enduring) problem with historical revisionism. Moreover, antisemitism is widespread within Hungary, including among better educated.
Read 13 tweets
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tolu ogunlesi
@toluogunlesi
Keep seeing this ‘No Arrest No Prosecution’ thing, by people who don’t really care for the truth. One of biggest myths of 2018. In every one of these States people have been arrested & are being prosecuted. One example: Zamfara, 117 arrests: google.com/amp/s/www.vang…

A #Thread
I think the starting point for commentary like this is to say that no death of any Nigerian at the hands of bandits & criminals is acceptable or justifiable. Even a single death is one too many. And one of the primary responsibilities of any Govt is security. That’s not in doubt.
So, this matter of ‘No Arrests No Prosecutions.’ It’s very far from true. The simplest of Google searches puts the lie to it.Also the Police regularly put out statements on large-scale arrests. I’ll share more links as part of this thread. This from Kaduna google.com/amp/s/punchng.…
Read 14 tweets
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Deezer234 #Sapere Aude!
@deezer234
SO MUCH ADO ABOUT HSBC

#thread
People have been screaming about the exit of HSBC and UBS as sign of
bad economics. That's a huge lie. I will try to explain it in a very
simple way. HSBC and UBS were never set up for regular banking. When I say regular banking I mean retail banking.
They never ran salary
accounts; they were never set up to afford loans to customers etc.
Their sole purpose was to help customers who can afford their services
an easy way to transfer funds overseas.
Read 31 tweets

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