Bloomberg: Top Communications Union Joins Group Pushing for Facebook’s Breakup

"The top U.S. communications union is joining a coalition calling for the Federal Trade Commission to break up Facebook Inc., as the social media company faces growing government scrutiny and public pressure.

“We should all be deeply concerned by Facebook’s power over our lives and democracy,” said Brian Thorn, a researcher for the 700,000-member Communications Workers of America, the newest member of the Freedom From Facebook coalition. For the FTC not to end Facebook’s monopoly and impose stronger rules on privacy “would be unfair to the American people, our privacy, and our democracy,” Thorn said in an email...

Sarah Miller, Freedom From Facebook’s director, said the addition of the union showed the group of privacy and anti-monopoly activists is gaining momentum.

“It’s a really important signal that we’re having more and more groups become interested in this set of solutions,” she said.

CWA will help develop the coalition’s evolving strategy, Miller added. The union joins groups including MoveOn and the Open Markets Institute in Freedom From Facebook. The anti-Facebook coalition plans to urge members to participate in upcoming public hearings of the FTC, Miller said. The agency’s chairman, Joe Simons, has said the question of whether tech giants such as Facebook, Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google are undermining competition will be a priority of the hearings."