Meta’s AI ‘Vibes’ Experiment Faces Trouble

Meta has finally closed the chapter on its years-long showdown with the Federal Trade Commission, after a federal judge ruled that the company did not violate antitrust law when it purchased Instagram and WhatsApp, effectively ending the FTC’s push to force Meta to sell off the two platforms. The dispute dates back to 2020, when the FTC first launched its lawsuit accusing Meta of unlawfully maintaining a social networking monopoly through “a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct.” At the heart of the case were two pivotal acquisitions: Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. Regulators claimed Meta bought both platforms specifically to “neutralize competition,” arguing that the deals were designed to shut down rivals rather than foster innovation. As a remedy, the FTC sought to unwind both acquisitions—an unprecedented move that would have reshaped the entire social media landscape. But in 2021, the lawsuit suffered an early blow when a federal judge dismissed it, noting that the FTC had failed to plausibly demonstrate that Facebook truly held monopoly power. The agency returned with a revised complaint soon after, which was cleared to proceed to trial the following year. What followed was an extended legal tug-of-war that has stretched on for years. Now, Meta has emerged victorious, effectively eliminating the possibility that its sprawling social ecosystem could be forcibly broken up. Ultimately, Meta convinced the court that acquiring companies to accelerate product development—rather than attempting to replicate every feature in-house—is a legitimate competitive strategy. The judge also emphasized that the FTC had framed Meta’s competitive landscape far too narrowly, ignoring the presence and growth of formidable players like TikTok and YouTube.  This was always the weak point in the FTC’s argument. Meta had repeatedly argued that regulators were painting an outdated picture of the market by focusing only on smaller competitors like Snapchat and MeWe, while overlooking platforms that now dominate the attention economy. In truth, TikTok’s meteoric rise has done Meta an unexpected favor: it demonstrated, beyond doubt, that a new entrant can still break through—even in a market supposedly dominated by a single giant. The court eventually concluded that the FTC’s definition of the competitive landscape was too constrained and failed to convincingly prove that Meta had smothered competition in any meaningful way. For Meta, it’s a monumental victory. The company can now move forward without the looming threat of being forced to split apart Instagram and WhatsApp. Yet the ruling also raises new questions about the direction of Meta’s long-discussed plan to unify messaging across its apps into one seamless inbox. For years, Meta seemed committed to integrating Messenger, Instagram DMs, and WhatsApp into a unified system—an effort many observers believed was partially motivated by legal strategy. By tightly fusing its platforms, Meta could make any forced breakup technically and operationally impossible. But as the company grew more confident in its chances of defeating the FTC, that urgency appeared to fade. Recent signs back that theory: Meta introduced a dedicated inbox for Threads earlier this year, something that would have complicated any unified messaging system. The move suggested that Meta no longer felt the pressure to rush toward total messaging integration. Still, that’s just one footnote in the broader aftermath. With the antitrust threat now behind it, Meta finally has the runway to advance its long-term strategy without the shadow of government intervention hanging over its head. 📢 If you're interested in Facebook Ads Account, don't hesitate to connect with us!🔹 https://linktr.ee/Adshinepro💬 We're always ready to assist you!

Do people genuinely care about Meta’s expanding suite of AI tools—those image generators that place you in surreal settings, or video models that conjure scenes on command? Are these capabilities capturing meaningful public interest, or is Meta far more enthusiastic about them than its users? That’s a difficult question to answer. Meta has repeatedly declared that its Meta AI chatbot is now the world’s most widely used AI assistant. Yet such a claim is inherently distorted by scale: Meta AI is woven into the search bar of every Meta-owned app. With 3.54 billion people using Meta platforms daily, vast numbers end up interacting with Meta AI unintentionally. Usage, in this context, doesn’t necessarily reflect genuine demand for AI features. A more revealing indicator is Meta’s standalone Meta AI app, which launched in April after the company renamed the “Meta View” app originally designed for the Ray-Ban smart glasses. Even then, unless you owned the glasses, the app offered little beyond basic AI functions already available inside Meta’s social apps. Not surprisingly, the rebrand did not immediately shift usage patterns. But as this chart from Similarweb shows, interest spiked dramatically in recent months.  You can clearly see the increased momentum after April’s rebrand—and then a sharp surge more recently. Some observers have pointed to this rise as evidence that Meta is “winning” the AI race. But even that narrative falls apart when you examine what triggered the spike. The surge coincided with Meta’s introduction of the “Vibes” feed, an AI-generated video stream, rolled out at the end of September.  Interest in Vibes drove enormous curiosity. Similarweb reports that the Meta AI app was downloaded 8.8 million times in October alone. However, curiosity-driven spikes don’t reflect actual long-term engagement. Which is why deeper usage data is more telling—and this week, Business Insider obtained internal Meta figures that shed light on what’s really happening. According to BI:- The Vibes feed has about 2 million daily active users, and engagement has slipped slightly week-over-week.- That’s notable when contrasted against the 30 million monthly active users in October. While comparing monthly and daily user data isn’t perfectly equivalent, the gap suggests that most people download the app, try it once, and don’t come back.- Most of early November’s growth came from India (702k daily users) and Brazil (114k daily users).- Europe, following the Vibes launch on November 6, contributed 23k daily users.- Usage is declining in parts of Southeast Asia, with the Philippines down 9% and Thailand down 7%. Taken together, the numbers indicate mild interest—but not sustained engagement. A feed filled with endlessly generated AI clips seems unable to hold attention in a meaningful way. And that’s hardly surprising, considering the sheer volume of low-quality content flooding that stream. But it also raises broader questions about Meta’s aggressive push into generative AI. Meta appears determined to make AI unavoidable. The apps are now dotted with prompts encouraging users to try Meta AI—ask a question, summon a bot, tap into an AI-enhanced search. It’s everywhere. But do people actually want this? Many of today’s AI outputs fall into what critics call “AI slop”—technically impressive but creatively hollow. It’s content in the most literal sense: stuff to scroll past, but seldom something that resonates. Occasionally, you encounter AI-generated work that genuinely impresses, thanks to an original idea or a clever concept guiding it. But that reinforces the point: creativity depends on people, not algorithms. Social platforms are fundamentally about human insight, human humor, human voice. And that’s precisely why AI replies feel sterile, and AI-written posts fall flat. Social media thrives on individuality. When you outsource your perspective to an AI model, you dilute the very thing that makes your contribution valuable. The trend toward AI-generated filler content risks turning social networks into spaces where bots talk to bots—and humans observe a digital echo chamber mimicking conversation. Is that really the future we’re building? AI prompts can help organize thoughts or spark ideas, and there is value in that. But if you have nothing to say, why fill the space with algorithmic padding? Why crowd the feed with synthetic reflections that add little to the broader dialogue? This is the uncomfortable truth: AI bots feel intrusive because they fill cultural silence that never needed filling. They generate content because they can—not because anyone needs or asks for it. Some argue that AI features can spur conversation or inspire creativity. Occasionally that’s true. But the irreplaceable value in social media comes from perspective—the one thing AI cannot authentically replicate. Why smother that behind machine-generated varnish? Meta is investing heavily in generative AI and positioning this wave of LLM-driven innovation as the road to future “superintelligence.” But even Yann LeCun, Meta’s own former AI chief, has argued that LLMs are a technological dead-end for achieving true intelligence—a recursive system stuck reshaping what already exists. The path to artificial general intelligence won’t emerge from reprocessing old data. It will come from breakthroughs that allow machines to perceive, reason, and understand in ways that mirror the human mind. LLMs, for all their utility, don’t do that. They operate on pattern prediction, not cognition. And while that has meaningful applications, it remains unclear what value it adds to social platforms. For now, the disconnect between Meta’s ambition and user appetite is increasingly visible. AI may be the future—but it’s not yet clear whether people want that future woven into every corner of their social experience. 📢 If you're interested in Facebook Ads Account, don't hesitate to connect with us!🔹 https://linktr.ee/Adshinepro💬 We're always ready to assist you!

Just a day after reports suggested Meta’s sprawling “2Africa” undersea cable project had hit yet another setback due to rising regional security concerns, the company has countered with an update of its own—claiming that most of the colossal initiative is now complete, while subtly conceding that some portions remain unfinished. Announced in 2021, the 2Africa project is one of the most ambitious submarine cable systems ever attempted, engineered to strengthen internet infrastructure linking Africa, Europe, and Asia. Spanning 45,000 kilometers beneath the ocean’s surface, the cable is designed to dramatically boost connectivity across key regions, including Africa, India, and the Middle East. According to Meta, the initiative is already delivering on its promise. As the company explains: “2Africa is the first cable to connect East and West Africa in a continuous system and link Africa to the Middle East, South Asia, and Europe. With a current reach of 33 countries and still counting, we’re enabling connectivity for 3 billion people across Africa, Europe, and Asia – more than 30% of the world’s population. This scale is unprecedented and we are proud to have partnered with stakeholders across the ecosystem to deliver new levels of connectivity at such scale.” Meta notes that the rollout required significant advances in cable engineering, including increasing burial depth by 50% compared to previous systems in order to avoid undersea hazards “such as seamounts at hot brine pools, improving resilience and network availability.” Unstated but impossible to ignore: hazards above the seabed as well. Bloomberg reports that construction teams have repeatedly come under missile fire in the Red Sea, allegedly from the Iranian-backed Houthi movement, as political tensions and territorial disputes escalated. These attacks have prompted delays and forced rerouting efforts. Google has faced comparable obstacles with its own undersea cable operations, with both projects reshaped by the worsening geopolitical environment. Meta has not publicly addressed the reported attacks, but its carefully phrased statement—highlighting completion of the project’s “core” rather than the entire system—speaks volumes. Despite these challenges, Meta maintains that 2Africa will be transformative for the continent. The company says the network will usher in “a step change in international bandwidth for Africa,” dramatically improving access across developing digital markets. “For example, on the West segment, stretching from England to South Africa, and landing in countries such as Senegal, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, DRC, and Angola, the cable supports 21 terabits per second (Tbps) per fiber pair, with 8 fiber pairs on the trunk. This results in a total trunk capacity of up to 180 Tbps. This massive capacity ensures a near-limitless supply of international internet bandwidth, allowing internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile network operators (MNOs) to secure capacity at much lower wholesale prices.” Meta projects that 2Africa could add as much as $36.9 billion to Africa’s GDP within its first few years of operation—an extraordinary economic lift. And for Meta itself, the benefits extend far beyond telecommunications. As the company moves to scale its AI tools globally, this foundational infrastructure will give it a far stronger foothold across emerging regions, positioning it to capture new markets and expand its worldwide revenue base. The project may not be entirely finished, but the momentum behind 2Africa remains undeniable—and its potential impact, enormous. 📢 If you're interested in Facebook Ads Account, don't hesitate to connect with us!🔹 https://linktr.ee/Adshinepro💬 We're always ready to assist you!