This week after testimony to Congress from the CEOs of major tech companies, news outlets covered it with supposed historical context. Most of those outlets missed the boat, but none so badly as @voxmedia's @today_explained in episode "Tim, Mark, Jeff, and Sundar".

Explained! 1/

I'm sure @rameswaram, @CaseyNewton (from @verge), and @karaswisher (of @Recode) had good intentions, but let's start from the top:

"We really haven't seen meaningful #antitrust regulation in this country for 50 years."

Uh... no. Someone miscounted by over a decade. 2/

On January 1, 1984, the largest tech company in the world for almost 100 years at that point was broken up after a settlement (consent decree) that was reached in January 1982. That was 36½ years ago, @CaseyNewton — and never mentioned in the piece! 3/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

Then we completely miss the parallels between AT&T/Bell and modern big tech.

@karaswisher: "And there are no rules for the Internet companies compared to Wall Street or chemical companies or car companies..."

Yet, we have the @FCC to regulate a whole tech sector: telecom. 4/

So let's dive in! What allegations came up?

@CaseyNewton: "The thing that is happening with Apple is that it runs one of the two dominant mobile phone operating systems and it also operates an app store that is necessary to use any apps on that phone."

This sounds familiar. 5/

AT&T/Bell spent a lot of lobbying power, and used strong-arm tactics, to demand that users only make use of products licensed by them.

Case in point, the Carterfone lawsuit, which in 1968 forced Bell to allow users to connect unlicensed equipment. 6/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone 

On Facebook, @CaseyNewton: "You're right in that Congress was really looking backward when it came to Facebook, whereas the antitrust questions facing the other companies feel much more current and future."

Did we miss something here? 7/

AT&T/Bell spent a whole century pushing competitors out of the market, by buying them up, pressuring lenders to cut business with them, using deception and lobbying to turn politicians against them, and more.

If they couldn't buy a competitor, Bell set out to destroy them. 8/

What about search, @CaseyNewton? "[Google] will answer with another Google product."

Telephone directories were the Google of the 1980s and earlier. They prominently featured glossy, card-stock stand-out ads for phone company services that bullied out potential competitors. 9/

In addition to those glossy inserts, the whole front of the telephone directory included advertorial pages touting products and services directly from the phone company that were often also available through third party competitors, buried down in the Yellow Pages. 10/

I didn't forget Amazon, @CaseyNewton: "Probably the the thing that got the most attention is that Amazon has been accused of analyzing the sales activity on its platform[...] And so then they make one of those and then they promote it higher in their search results." 11/

AT&T/Bell had a fraught history with long-distance company competitors including ITT, MCI, and SPC (today known as Sprint).

Before and even after breakup, AT&T would analyze phone-calling nationwide to focus their predatory practices based on patterns of highest usage. 12/

And that segues neatly into data collection, @karaswisher: "Well, I'm not Facebook. I came off of it. I don’t want their information. I don't want their grubby, thieving hands in my data."

AT&T/Bell built Big Data decades ago to direct their marketing/predatory efforts. 13/

You want parallels between current Big Tech investigations and past tech industry antitrust actions? Look no further than AT&T/Bell. It's all right there.

They did *all* the tactics alleged here, and more, and were forced to restructure as a result. 14/

Another nice summary is compiled in @ExplodeThePhone chapter 20, "Twilight", and see also the source material for that chapter.

I'm frankly a little disappointed in this report, folks, because you missed the boat entirely. 15/

My hope is that other major outlets ( @washingtonpost, @nytimestech, @npralltech, etc.) will dive deeper into these parallels.

The AT&T/Bell antitrust actions are not just similar. They're a *direct roadmap* for the current investigations. /end

(I'm not even sure which legislators would care about this thread's points, but @JerryNadler and @ewarren have been around long enough to see the Bell breakup play out, and they know the tactics described.

Don't play the antitrust game blindly. There is precedent here.)