EU orders Meta to open WhatsApp to rival AI chatbots

It is a curious thing, the way the great powers of Europe have decided to take the keys from the lockbox of Mr. Zuckerberg and hand them to his rivals, all in the name of fairness. One hears the officials in Brussels speak of competition and market dynamics with such solemn gravity that you might imagine they are discussing the distribution of bread in a famine, rather than the routing of text messages between teenagers. They say that Meta has grown too large, too comfortable in its corner of the digital town square, and that it is the duty of the state to ensure the door remains open for those who wish to walk in. It sounds noble, in the same way that a judge sounds noble when he orders a thief to return the stolen horse, provided the thief is willing to let the horse graze in the neighbor’s field while he does so.

The order, as I understand it, requires Meta to grant rival AI chatbots free access to Whats App within five working days. Five days. A blink of an eye in the life of a corporation that moves at the speed of light, yet an eternity for a man trying to explain to his wife why the new machine in the parlor is speaking in riddles. The European Union, in its wisdom, believes that by forcing the host to open the gate, the guests will naturally flow in and create a vibrant, competitive marketplace. It is a theory that rests on the assumption that people want to talk to strangers, or at least, that they want to talk to strangers who are not already sitting on their sofa.

One must admire the sheer audacity of the logic. It is as if a landlord were ordered to let every carpenter, plumber, and painter into his house to fix the roof, not because the roof is leaking, but because the landlord has a monopoly on shingles. The argument is that the carpenter deserves the chance to prove he can do a better job. But the house is not a public square; it is a private dwelling. And the people inside are not looking for a carpenter. They are looking for their brother, their lover, their mother. They are not shopping for services; they are maintaining relationships.

The officials in Brussels seem to have forgotten that the value of Whats App is not in the technology, but in the network. It is the same as the telephone. You do not switch telephone companies because the new one has a slightly faster dial tone; you stay because your friends are on that line. The EU is trying to create competition where there is none to be had, by forcing a choice that no rational person would make. It is like ordering a man to try on a different coat because the tailor who made the first one has too many customers. The coat fits. The man is warm. The tailor is busy. What is the grievance?

There is also the matter of the AI chatbots. These new entrants, these digital oracles, are being invited into the parlor. The idea is that they will enhance the user experience, or perhaps disrupt the status quo. But I wonder if the average person in Berlin or Paris wants an AI chatbot interrupting their conversation with their aunt. The EU assumes that competition is always good, that more voices are always better than one. But in a private conversation, more voices are just noise. The state is treating human communication like a commodity, a thing to be optimized and regulated, rather than a natural occurrence, like the rain or the wind.

It is part of an antitrust investigation, we are told. They are worried about Meta’s practices. But what is the practice? Holding a conversation? Keeping a secret? The state has decided that privacy is a barrier to competition, and that transparency is a public good. This is a dangerous notion. It suggests that the only way to ensure fairness is to strip away the walls of the house and let the wind blow through. The warmth of the room is lost, but the air is fresh, they say. I suppose.

I have no objection to experts, as I have said before, but I do object to experts who cannot explain their decisions in language that a farmer would use. “Interoperability” is a word that means nothing to the man who just wants to know if his son is safe. “Market distortion” is a phrase that sounds impressive but hides the fact that the market is being distorted by the hand of the state, not the hand of the consumer. The EU is playing a game of chess with pieces that do not exist, while the players are trying to have dinner.

There is a fond disappointment in all of this. I like the idea of a fair market. I like the idea of choice. But I do not like the idea of being told what to choose by a bureaucracy that thinks it knows me better than I know myself. The EU is well-meaning, no doubt. They want to protect the little guy from the big guy. But in doing so, they have become the big guy themselves, wielding a gavel where a handshake would have sufficed. The knife is warm, but the hand holding it is cold. And I wonder, when the dust settles, if anyone will actually use these new chatbots, or if they will just go back to talking to their friends, grateful that the door, for all its forced opening, still leads to the same room.