S8 Ep161: The Flawed Logic of the FTC's Crusade Against Meta — Jessica Melugin — Melugin analyzes the failed FTCcomplaint against Meta, arguing the agency fundamentally abandoned the "consumer welfare standard" governing antitrust doctrine to prioritize competitor

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Society & Culture, Arts, News, Books

4.5 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Flawed Logic of the FTC's Crusade Against Meta — Jessica Melugin — Melugin analyzes the failed FTCcomplaint against Meta, arguing the agency fundamentally abandoned the "consumer welfare standard" governing antitrust doctrine to prioritize competitor protection over demonstrable consumer harm. Melugin emphasizes that the FTC's characterization of Meta's acquisitions as anti-competitive ignores the critical reality that Meta services are provided at zero cost to users, who have demonstrably benefited from continuous service improvements and technological innovation arising from Meta's competitive acquisitions.
1954

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.8	There's no better feeling than waking up surrounded by comfort.
0:05.0	From Dunelm, the home of your kind of cosy.
0:08.0	Keep the heat where you want it with our range of thermal curtains and cuddly hot water bottles.
0:15.0	Discover hundreds of snug ways to style up your space at your local Dunelm, or online with free click and collect in as little as two hours.
0:24.9	The home of your kind of cozy, Denelm.
0:27.9	The Home of Homes.
0:35.2	This is CBS Eye on the world.
0:38.6	Here's John Batchelor.
0:42.3	This is CBSI on the world.
0:44.7	I'm John Batchel.
0:45.8	Meta, very successful.
0:47.5	Three billion, I'm told.
0:49.6	Instagram, also successful, owned by Meta.
0:53.3	WhatsApp, very successful overseas. And I use it routinely with my correspondence, owned by META.
1:00.3	There are others to name Tick Knock, not owned by META.
1:03.5	All these are players in an FTC tussle these last years.
1:08.3	I learned this from Jessica Malugian, director of the Center for Technology
1:12.3	and Innovation at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and an innovator's Network Foundation
1:18.6	Antitrust and Competition Policy Fellow. Jessica is going to help me understand something I've seen
1:24.4	around the edges of these very popular platforms, but not understood
1:29.2	till now. Jessica, very good evening to you. In late Trump won, there was a declaration by the
1:36.8	FTC against META for non-competitive conduct. That was dismissed and went away. And then in early Biden, this is dated September 1st,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.