Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams Facebook during outage, saying company’s ‘monopolistic behavior’ saying it’s destructive to ‘free society and democracy’

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams Facebook during outage, saying company’s ‘monopolistic behavior’ saying it’s destructive to ‘free society and democracy’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blamed what she called Facebook's "monopolistic behavior" for the impacts of Monday's that affected WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. She that Latin American communities were disproportionately affected by the Facebook outage on Monday, due to the high use of WhatsApp. "It's almost as if Facebook's monopolistic mission to either own, copy, or destroy any competing platform has incredibly destructive effects on free society and democracy," the congresswoman said on Twitter, in response to Forbes editor José Caparroso. "Remember: WhatsApp wasn't created by Facebook. It was an independent success. FB got scared & bought it," Ocasio-Cortez continued. During the outage, Caparroso tweeted: "Latin America lives on WhatsApp. I am surprised by so many people underestimating how catastrophic this downfall has been." Other social media users agreed. "The repercussions of WhatsApp being down in The Rest Of The World are vast and devastating. It's like the equivalent of your phone and the phones of all of your loved ones being turned off without warning. The app essentially functions as an unregulated utility," said Aura Bogado, a reporter and producer at Reveal. "If Facebook's monopolistic behavior was checked back when it should've been (perhaps around the time it started acquiring