On "Forbes Newsroom," Forbes Staff Writer Emily Baker-White discussed the FTC case against Meta in which CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken the stand this week.
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00:00Is there anything else that the Forbes audience should know about this case and what it means for big tech?
00:07I think we are in a moment where big tech is hyper concentrated, right?
00:15You've got Facebook, you've got Google, you've got Amazon.
00:20And it does seem like Google, of course, had an antitrust trial where it largely lost.
00:27Um, we're, we're seeing a moment of concentration and then we're seeing a government response to that.
00:34And, and I think it's sort of too early to tell, but an interesting question to ask to see, like, is the government eventually going to take the stance that, like, this amount of concentration is not appropriate and that we actually do need more smaller actors?
00:48It seems far from certain that, that that will be the case.
00:52But if that is the outcome of some of these FTC actions, that would be really interesting.
00:57Those are all the legal questions.
00:59I mentioned myself using these platforms.
01:02Is there anything that consumers should know?
01:04Is anything going to change while this case goes on?
01:06Or is it business as usual until the court makes its decision?
01:10Nothing is going to change for a while.
01:13Um, I, I don't think your experience on the platforms will be different.
01:15But, but I do think, um, sort of lurking in the back of this is there have been consumer actions against, um, meta that are, that are moving forward and thinking about, you know, people have largely turned on Facebook and meta on Instagram.
01:36They, you know, they talk about the platform and shitifying.
01:39They talk about there are more ads than ever.
01:41People only use Facebook for marketplace now.
01:44Right.
01:44And, and that's, of course, not necessarily true around the globe.
01:46And this is still a company that has immense power.
01:49But I think there's something to, as the FTC goes through this process, just how much the public has sort of turned on meta and their products.
01:59Because I don't think you find a lot of people who unambiguously say, yeah, I love that company.
02:04That's a really good point.
02:05And yet, when there was a WhatsApp outage a few months ago, it felt like the world seized up a little bit.
02:12Have you or have any of our colleagues at Forbes looked at which part of meta is most valuable, not just monetarily, but in the cultural cachet?
02:20Because I think of WhatsApp as the golden goose in this portfolio.
02:25Certainly internationally, I think that's right.
02:27Um, and, and it's easy in the United States to discount just how powerful WhatsApp has been across the world.
02:35And, and to connect families where people are in different, you know, jurisdictions and have sort of different access to, to information.
02:43WhatsApp is really a lifesaver there.
02:45Um, yeah, I, I'm really curious to see how it turns out.
02:51So many questions.
02:52We will have to have you back as this trial unfolds, because like you said, I think it will be granular.
02:57There will be nitty gritty and we'll have to have you back to sort them through.
03:00But Emily Baker White, thank you so much for joining us to discuss the Facebook, sorry, meta antitrust trial.
03:11Thank you very much.