hankyoreh

Illustration by Jaewoogy@chol.com

“The winner takes it all, the loser standing small. I was in your arms, thinking I belonged there. But I was a fool.”

These words are from the ABBA song “The Winner Takes It All” that is featured in “Mamma Mia,” a musical that has also become a major success in its Korean version. They are delivered by the character of Donna as she breaks down in front of the man who has come back to her, after she believed she had made a “choice” to simply forget about him and raise their child alone following his departure.

All of us become vulnerable when our backs are against the wall and have no escape available to us. Even when the misdeeds of one party are apparent for all the world to see, it can be hard to walk away, given the various relationships we have worked so hard on.

But when we can’t walk away, it is all too easy for the other party to simply do whatever they feel like. After all, they know they are the ones in control of the relationship.

In the market, laws have been created to prevent these kinds of entities from emerging and abusing their position. The Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act defines them as “market-dominant business entities.”

A market-dominant business entity is a “supplier or consumer in a particular business area, in a market position to determine, maintain, or change the price, quantity, quality, or other terms and conditions of transactions of goods or services, either alone or together with other business entities.” In other words, all conditions end up determined to suit these entities’ wishes.

Many people were recently shocked to see the company Meta failing to take any real measures in response to the rampant impersonation of celebrities in advertising on its social media site Facebook.

Even after reports of people brazenly claiming to be public figures such as Kim Chong-in, Chu Jin-hyung, or Song Eun-yi as they advertise “reading rooms” where illegal stock speculation takes place, Meta’s response was to insist it cannot delete those advertisements because they are not in violation of its regulations.

It’s an attitude that borders on the tyrannical. Users have been infuriated to see Meta continuing to make money off these impersonator advertisements.

So should the people who are angry simply leave Meta? When you’ve invested time in developing and sustaining a social network and when you’ve nurtured and potentially benefited from content, it can be difficult to walk away without any alternative. There are also Facebook logins to think about, along with connected services such as Instagram and Threads.

Meta is well aware that this is not a matter of personal choice, but one of a monopolistic system. That’s the only explanation for how it can respond to countries’ regulations aimed at stopping targeted advertisements based on illegal personal information gathering by brazenly demanding that they pay up if they don’t want the ads.

By Lim Ji-sun, Big Tech reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]