The legal fight that could reshape social media
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Who is hosting the episode and what topics will be covered?
Good morning. It's Monday, April 14th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, why the Social Security Administration is declaring some people dead falsely and on purpose. Higher ed institutions are doing disaster budgeting. And those tariff exemptions for smartphones and other electronics will be short-lived.
What is the legal case against Meta about?
But first, social media giant Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is in court starting today in a massive antitrust trial that could change the entire social media landscape. The Federal Trade Commission alleges the company violated antitrust laws when it acquired Instagram in 2012 and the messaging service WhatsApp in 2014. Lauren Feiner is a senior policy writer for The Verge, and she told us the government is arguing Meta with those acquisitions essentially became a monopoly.
Meta ended up growing its dominance and cutting off what could have been really formidable competitors to its dominance, and that it did that in order to retain this power in the market so that no one else could really come up against it.
The FTC cites a 2012 email in its argument where Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg names startups like Instagram as potentially disruptive to its business. Meta says the company always competes fairly and is facing punishment for its success in growing those apps into major players in the social media world. Feiner says the crux of the FTC's argument is that Meta monopolizes personal social networking services, a definition that will matter a lot in this case. The way the FTC views it.
How does the FTC define Meta’s alleged monopoly?
They basically say, look, there are this very tiny group of social networking apps that are really used just to connect with other people, to connect with friends and family. You use them differently than an app like YouTube or TikTok, where maybe you're primarily scrolling through and passively watching content. And you're also using it differently than like a LinkedIn, where you're really trying to use it to find a job or make career connections. This is really about personal social networking.
Meta sees the space differently.
What is Meta’s response to the antitrust allegations?
They say, you know, we really compete in this really vast and varied social media landscape that includes TikTok, that includes YouTube, that includes all of these other social media apps that really look a lot alike.
It's important to point out that the acquisitions in question were vetted and cleared by the FTC more than a decade ago. The government, however, now says Meta may not have been forthcoming during that process. As all of this is going on, Zuckerberg has sought to curry favor with President Trump. Meta settled a previous lawsuit over the banning of Trump's accounts. And Zuckerberg reportedly made trips to Mar-a-Lago and the White House to personally lobby Trump to direct the FTC to drop this antitrust case. Feiner says it's yet to be seen whether or not that investment will pay off for Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs who have lobbied Trump. Feiner says a recent decision against Google also matters here.
A judge ruled that Google illegally monopolized the online search market, which could open the door for other important cases to go against big tech companies.
It was really impactful to see a judge reach that conclusion after all of this rethinking about how antitrust laws should be enforced in the digital age.
If Meta loses this case, the government could force it to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp into separate companies. They currently generate billions of dollars for Meta. For consumers, Feiner told us, it could mean potentially better social media platforms in the future.
The government would say that if they won, this could potentially open up the market for social media apps. And maybe if there's things you don't like about social media, maybe there'll be room for a new competitor to come in with a new idea that challenges certain features of social media that maybe wouldn't be able to get off the ground the way the market is right now. You know, Meta would obviously dispute that theoretical version of the future, but I think that's really what this whole case is about.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is hosting the episode and what topics will be covered?
0:05–0:34
2
What is the legal case against Meta about?
0:34–1:51
3
How does the FTC define Meta’s alleged monopoly?
1:51–2:23
4
What is Meta’s response to the antitrust allegations?
2:23–5:33
5
What could happen if Meta loses the antitrust lawsuit?
5:33–6:43
6
What controversial changes are happening at the Social Security Administration?
6:43–7:31
7
Why is the Social Security Administration falsely declaring immigrants dead?
7:31–9:27
8
What are the implications of immigrants being falsely labeled as dead?
9:27–13:36
Speakers
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