A Meta breakup looks like a chance for publishers to take back (some) control

A splintering in the platform world seems imminent. Will greater competition bring publishers closer to parity with Big Tech?

by Rob Corbidge

Published: 15:01, 01 May 2025

During Meta's ongoing antitrust trial, the single most important legal point in dispute was exactly who Meta's platforms are in competition against.

Obviously, the US Federal Trade Commission contends that Meta properties compete unfairly in a limited market of "personal social-networking" platforms, whereas Meta insists it's really in competition with everybody else, from YouTube to TikTok.

While it's clear that the "personal social" aspect of Meta's properties has made a unique and all-important contribution to their success and dominant position, it remains true they are indeed in direct competition with everyone else for the only metric that matters, attention.

Attention means time, the single most precious commodity human beings have. While there are some obvious distinctions that can be made with the exact type of time we all give to consume the various channels of media in our lives, the common factor is time by way of attention.

Whatever happens as a result of decisions in the current major US antitrust cases against Meta and Google, it seems very likely that things won't be the same in the next few years. The platform landscape looks set to change, with the promise of greater competition being driven by at least some diversity of ownership. 

This sort of thing is never not timely, and I expect it to be front and centre of conversations at any industry event in months to come, including the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress in Krakow next week at which Glide will be, ferreting out the views and concerns as usual. Do come and say hi if you are there.

In our wildest publishing dreams, a full reversal of platform polarity can be entertained. If you consider that such a reverse polarity is manifest in the phrase "the people that produce the stuff that makes the money should get most of it" it really doesn't seem so outrageous, does it? Even, maybe, just fair.

That's how far such a reversal in platform polarity would take us from what might be considered the content sweatshop we currently enjoy, a sweatshop with a new and uncaring boss in the shape of generative AI. The feeding of which monster I recently saw described as "the largest uncompensated labour appropriation in human history".

We have moved so far from common sense in the content game that the people who specialise in doing it and capture attention most consistently - i.e. publishers and creators - are now seen as serfs on their own land.

Trend vs reality

Schooled as I am in the fundamental rules of British popular journalism, it's usually a requirement for a given thing to happen three times - not more, not less - for it to be labelled indisputably as a trend.

The advent of social media has only amplified this tendency, as we are presented with stories of TikTok screenagers gluing their ears to doors, or only eating frozen beans for a month, or whatever crowd-sourced foolishness has climbed its way to the summit of the silly pile.

Yet, when it comes to the relationship of publishers with Big Platform, the steep and hard learning curve that we have skidded up over the past decades has led to such a jaundiced view of them and what their promises are worth, that my base opinion starts at "disappointed".

Dare I remove this cynical shielding that has served so well, and attempt to consider a recent platform development in a favourable light? Even more of a challenge, in that it involves seeing Meta as anything other than a juggernaut trying to hit us. With all that said, it is possible to see the recent surge in traffic to publishers from Facebook as being the start of a broader realignment.

Could it be that Meta, in the persona of Mr Zuckerberg, have realised that shovelling tanker-sized capsules of money into projects that go nowhere, is, well, going nowhere?

Hard to tell: even as Meta are rapidly shedding employees from its doomed-from-inception Metaverse projects, they are launching an AI app to compete with OpenAI. Do I hear the sound of champagne corks not virtually popping?

Whatever the case, it's my suspicion that Meta might have come full circle, and realised that the best way to do content in such a disputatious era is to let those who do it professionally have greater visibility.

No algorithm or content moderator can truly comprehend the moving storm that is a culture, as they've surely learned by now. Likewise, if a predicted downturn in advertising spend comes on the back of the current attempt at economic realignment, then surely you'd want your adverts against good content?

It's a glimmer on the edge of a slim possibility, but it could be the polarity between platform and publisher is starting to switch to a more natural, equitable state, and one which is ultimately better for everyone.