Tech This Week | Facebook services integration includes trade-offs

If you're considering technology policy, you might have heard rumours about Facebook trying to merge its services, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, for a couple of years now. The very notion of the move has proven to be controversial since its inception.

Earlier this week, Facebook allowed select users on Messenger and Instagram to message from one software to the other, and we got among our first glimpses on what integration of Facebook platforms might appear to be.

As I hinted in the introduction, there is some historical context to the. The idea has been around the works for a couple of years now. The progress on this in addition has been chronicled well by Steven Levy in his publication, Facebook: The Inside Story. It is an outstanding read, but if you do not have the time, here is a short summary.

Facebook acquired Instagram and WhatsApp, promising the founders of both companies the freedom to build out the platforms just how they wanted. The arrangement worked fine for a few years, but then Facebook commenced to rein them in. Here's an excerpt from Levy’s book that explains how Zuckerberg considered this:

In early stages, Facebook was the primary product and Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger were starting. It made sense to leave the founders alone and let them build their best products. “That was incredibly successful,” he says. “And it made sense for the first five years. However now we’re at a spot where each one of these products are big and important. I don’t want to just build multiple versions of the same product. We ought to have a more coherent and integrated company strategy.”

Once WhatsApp and Instagram (and Oculus) became sufficiently big, it had been time to integrate these properties in to the larger Facebook machine. A couple of indications made the process feel more tangible, from the distance of the toilet doors in Facebook offices to the e-mail IDs that employees from Instagram and WhatsApp used. It had been no more @instagram.com or @whatsapp.com; instead, they now read as @fb.com.

You will make the argument that integrating services is definitely Facebook’s plan from the very beginning. However the underlying assumption, more often than not, has been that Facebook is doing this in order to avoid antitrust action. The theory is that currently, these software exist as separate properties. If a regulator were to break them up, it could be a relatively straightforward process.

However, suppose these properties are integrated at the back-end, and the thing differentiating them are the user interfaces. If so, when a break-up order comes through, Facebook could lift the curtain and say that of this is merely one product. Breaking it up will mean be messy and might mean that all of it ceases to function. And if Facebook ceases to work, then software from China will need over, and the united states will eventually lose their national champion.

I see some problems with that argument. That’s just because a regulator’s incentives are not going to be aligned with Facebook’s. Let me explain. THE GOVERNMENT, during the past, has split up AT&T, just about the most complex telecom structures known to man at the time. Splitting up Facebook may wrap up looking like something similar. So far as the regulator can be involved, the breakup will not must be neat. A messy antitrust action will serve the purpose effectively, whether or not it looks worse.

On an individual level, I have mixed feelings on the merging of Messenger and Instagram. On the main one hand, that's one less app to have. In the middle of the pandemic, there are more platforms than you have what to say, including Teams, Slack, Email, Messenger, Instagram Direct, and WhatsApp. But as well, in the event you used one service rather than the other, there could be an incentive that you should be on both.

This brings me to the second-order effect we have to be more worried about. Chris Cox, who recently returned to Facebook as Chief Product Officer, was tasked with the integration of the applications initially. Cox saw integration presenting somewhat of a lose-lose trade-off.

The integration at the time will be privacy-focused and besides being truly a technical challenge, would require encrypting the contents of most messages such that even Facebook cannot read them. While that is a win for privacy, as well, it would make it harder for the business to fight hate speech and information disorder. Historically, the failure to curb the latter has resulted in problems resulting in disastrous consequences globally.

While Cox is back now, the trade-off never went away. Facebook’s integration is stuck between a rock and a difficult place. Weaken/remove encryption, and the business will be quickly branded Orwellian. Enforce encryption, and it becomes a whole lot harder to manage bad actors on the platform. There are no winners here.