Invigorating Competition in Social Networking: An Interoperability Remedy That Addresses Data Network Effects and Privacy Concerns

The persistent dominance of Facebook has led many scholars and policymakers to generate proposals to invigorate competition in social networking. In this piece we address a remedy that has received renewed attention: interoperability. Prior proposals of interoperability have focused on eroding entry barriers that exist due to user-based network effects. We focus here on data-generated network effects: the more data Facebook acquires from its users, the more its AI algorithms can learn and improv