Ashley Madison CSO Comments on Facebook Antitrust Case

Ashley Madison’s Chief Strategy Officer has spoken out against Facebook amidst a Federal Trade Commission antitrust investigation.

The inquiry is looking into the tech giant’s alleged deployment of “hardball tactics” to try and take down competitors.

The infidelity dating platform has been banned from running promotional posts on Facebook, and a number of other dating apps have had issues with advertising. 

CSO Paul Keable told the Wall Street Journal: “Facebook has created a scenario where they get to pick and choose who wins based on their personal whims. All while running their own competitive products.”

This issue has been quickly thrust upon the online dating community with the launch of Facebook Dating in the US earlier this month. 

Following the announcement, conservative dating app Righter accused Facebook of abusing its power and attempting to monopolise the industry, due to its continual rejection of dating adverts.

A spokesperson from the social media company responded to the complaints by saying: “This is competition at work and one of the longtime hallmarks of the tech sector. Businesses continually build and iterate on concepts and ideas in the marketplace – making them better or taking them in different directions. This is good for consumers.”

Last week, Facebook started to put together an independent regulatory board to oversee reviews of user-generated content takedowns. The team will have the final say on all appeals and their voices will carry even more weight than Mark Zuckerberg’s.

Changes were made to the iOS App Store algorithm a couple of weeks ago after competing developers raised concerns that apps produced by Apple were appearing higher up the search results than they should.

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