Facebook’s new move isn't about privacy. It’s about domination

People in China use WeChat for everything from sending messages to family to reading news and opinion to ordering food to paying at vending machines to paying for a taxi. For Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, WeChat is both his greatest challenge and the model for the future of his company. WeChat is what Facebook has yet to become. WeChat, should it move beyond China and its diaspora, is also the greatest threat to Facebook’s global domination. This, better than any empty and distracting pledge of “pivoting to privacy”, explains Zuckerberg’s announcement on March 6. The ultimate unification of Facebook's platforms [Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram] under the mothership, Facebook, could effectively block any governmental attempts to sever Instagram and WhatsApp from the company. This move is not about protecting you. It’s about defeating other companies and consolidating global power.

[Siva Vaidhyanathan is the Robertson Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia]