Media Expert: Big Tech Monopolies Are ‘Going to Be a Problem More and More’

Jonathan Taplin, director emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California, warned in a recent interview that tech monopolies are going to become an increasingly big problem in the future.

In an interview with CNBC, Jonathan Taplin, the director emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California, stated his concerns surrounding big tech monopolies. Taplin, who previously worked as the vice president of media mergers and acquisitions at Merrill Lynch, stated: “This is going to be a problem more and more as Amazon, for instance, gets into the business of manufacturing its own products. Amazon is going to push its own products over the third parties that it supposedly is a neutral seller for.”

Taplin also stated his belief that Facebook will face similar problems as the company enters live sports streaming. Facebook recently won the rights to stream Premier League football matches to Southeast Asian countries and La Liga matches in India for free, showing just how much traditional television is being threatened by online services. “Facebook will become a content player and a neutral platform … this is a big problem,” said Taplin.

Taplin stated his belief that if Facebook sold Instagram and Alphabet sold YouTube, it could result in a vastly improved digital landscape, but in the United States, this development is unlikely to happen. Taplin has predicted that “it will be hard for these big companies to buy another big company.”

Taplin stated that while Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods did not raise any major problems, if Google tried to buy a streaming platform such as Spotify, “that might be blocked and that would be a good thing,” he said.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com