Firstly, end-to-end encryption means Facebook will have complete deniability for anything that travels across its messaging tools.
It won’t be able to “see” the messages
While this might be good from a user privacy perspective, it also means anything from bullying, to scams, to illegal drug sales, to paedophilia chile cell phone database can’t be policed if it happens via these tools.
Facebook’s push for end-to-end encryption is good news for user privacy, as well as terrorists and paedophiles
This would stop Facebook being blamed for hurtful or illegal uses of its services. As far as moderating the platform goes, Facebook would effectively become “invisible” (not to mention moderation is expensive and complicated).
This is all great news for Mark Zuckerberg
specially as Facebook stares down the barrel of potential anti-trust litigation.
Secondly, once the apps are merged, functionally they will no longer be separate platforms. They will still exist as separate apps with some separate features, but the vast amount of personal data underpinning them will live in one giant, shared database.
Deeper data integration will let Facebook know users more intimately. Moreover, it will be able to leverage this new insight to target users with more advertising and expand further.
Finally, and perhaps most concerning, is that by integrating its apps Facebook could legitimately respond to anti-trust lawsuits by saying it can’t separate Instagram or WhatsApp from the main Facebook platform – because they’re the same thing now.
And if they can’t be separated, there’s no way Facebook could sell Instagram or WhatsApp, even if it wanted to.
100 billion messages a day
The messaging traffic across Facebook’s platforms is vast, with more than 100 billion messages sent daily. And this has only increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the sheer size of its user database, Facebook continues to either purchase, or squash, its competition. Concerns about the company being a monopoly aren’t without merit.
Researchers and founding Facebook employees have called to have the company split up – and for Instagram and Whatsapp to become separate again.
Just a few months ago
Facebook released its Instagram-housed tool Reels which bears a striking resemblance to TikTok, another social app sweeping the globe.
It seems this is just another example of Facebook trying to use the sheer size of its network to stifle growing competition, aided (perhaps unwittingly) by Donald Trump’s anti-China sentiment.
If competition is important to encouraging innovation and diversity, then the newest development from Facebook discourages both these things. It further entrenches Facebook and its services into the lives of consumers, making it harder to pull away. And this certainly isn’t far from monopolistic behaviour.