Meta just picked a fight with news - it could be costly

#329: Blaming journos for being mean while running a monopoly that publishes hate at an apocalyptic scale was an interesting legal ploy...

Meta’s making mistakes and yesterday was the dooziest day so far of the Federal Trade Commission’s efforts to carve the social network up.

The FTC’s case is that Meta spent $20 billion buying Instagram and WhatsApp to stop them becoming rivals, so it could sew up the $160 billion social ad market.

Meta’s counter-argument is that it’s done the world a favour by throwing resources at them and made social better - while the market remains hyper-competitive.

The case has ebbed this way and that over the past two weeks, but yesterday Meta made a crazy and unnecessary decision that I reckon will come back to haunt them.

It went directly at the jugular of the news industry.

In a moment of breathtaking hypocrisy, Meta criticised the media for being nasty, scandalous, biased, and having an axe to grind.

Um… We do have an axe to grind.

• We have an axe to grind because Meta set out to destroy our industry.

• We have an axe to grind because Zuck told execs to “dominate, crush” news.

• We have an axe to grind because he greenlit stealing our content for AI.

So yes, we do. And it’s also journalism’s role in society to hold the rich and powerful to account.

Personally, I was born for this sh*t. So let’s get into it - and why I think this might turn the case towards a win for the FTC.