Facebook meta owner wins antitrust lawsuit, won’t break Instagram, whatsapp
Meta has overcome a challenge to its business that may have forced the tech giant to ditch Instagram and WhatsApp after a judge ruled that the company was not caught practicing social media.
US District Judge James BOASBERG issued his decision on Tuesday after the historic anti-trafficking case concluded in late May.
His decision runs out of power different from the two different decisions that were prominent Google illegal in advertising and marketing on the Internet, to deal with the beating of control in the field of technology that was enjoying the forbidden growth.
The Federal Trade Commission “continues to insist that meta competes with the same old competitors of the past decade, that this company holds a wound in the middle of that small company,” Boasberg wrote in his decision.
“Whether or not meta enjoyed monopoly power in the past, the agency must demonstrate that it continues to hold power now. The Court’s decision today determines that the FTC does not.”
FTC Says Facebook Targets ‘Neutrise Threats’
The Federal Agency had argued that meta maintained a monopoly following a statement CEO Mark Zuckerberg made in 2008: “‘It’s better to buy than to compete.’ In accordance with that maxim, Facebook systematically pursued potential competitors and acquired companies that they considered to be major competitive threats. ”
In his April testimony, Zuckerberg pushed back on claims that Facebook bought Instagram to fend off a threat.
In his line of questioning, FTC attorney Daniel Matheson repeatedly brought emails – many of them more than ten years old – written by Zuckerberg and his friends before and after the acquisition of Instagram.
While admitting the documents, Zuckerberg often wants to minimize the content, saying that he wrote the emails at the beginning of the acquisition process and that the notes did not completely capture his interest in the company.
But this case had nothing to do with the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp more than a decade ago, which the FTC allowed at the time, but almost how Meta holds a monopoly now.
Prosecutors, Boasberg wrote in the decision, could win if they prove “under or near violations of the law.”
The FTC complaint said that Facebook also put in place policies designed to make it difficult for smaller competitors to enter the market and “neutralize competition,” just as the world is shifting its focus to mobile computers from desktop computers.
Parent company Facebook and Instagram’s Meta is removing truth checkers from the platforms and instead relying on users to comment accurately, but experts warn they have been exposed to an increase in misinformation.
What Makes Meta Governance Matter
The decision “recognizes that meta is facing fierce competition,” the company said on Tuesday.
“Our products benefit people and businesses and drive American innovation and economic growth,” said Jennifer Newcest, Chief Legal Officer, in a statement.
“We look forward to continuing to partner with the administration and invest in America.”
The Social Media Landscape has changed dramatically since the FTC filed its case in 2020, Boasberg wrote, each time the court examined meta apps and the competition, they had changed.
The two opinions to dismiss the case – Filed in 2021 and 2022 – did not even mention the Social Video video platform. Today, it “holds center stage as Meta’s Fiercest competitor.”
To quote the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, “that no one can step into the same river twice,” Boasberg says the same applies to the online world of social media.
“The situation existed only five years ago when the Federal Trade Commission brought this permit to fight and fight the separation of applications from different parts of the social network, it wrote.
The head of Meta was challenged on whether he would apologize – on the spot – to the families of children exposed to sexual content on his social media platforms as he answered questions about actions being taken against online harm.
Meta not ‘out of the woods’
Emarketer analyst Minda Smiley said that Meta’s win “doesn’t come as a surprise given the lengths that TikTok has gone in recent years.
“But from a regulatory standpoint, the meta is far from the forest: the following year, major social networks faced trials followed in the US regarding the mental health of children,” he added.
“Still, today’s win is encouraging for the company as it battles criticism and questions about whether its big AI investment will gain a meta in the long run.”
Facebook bought Instagram — then a scrappy photo-sharing app with no ads and a small cult following — in 2012.
The price of $ 1 billion US Cash and the purchase price of the stock was eye-popping at the time, although the price fell $ 750 million after the price of Facebook’s stock following its initial offering in May 2012.
Instagram was the first company that Facebook bought and continued to operate as a separate app. Until that time, Facebook was known for small “OREA-Hires” – the kind of Silicon Valley that concerns the company initially as a way to hire its talented employees, and then close the company found down.
Two years later, it did it again with the messaging app WhatsApp, which it bought for $22 billion.
WhatsApp and Instagram help Facebook move its business from desktop computers to mobile devices, and remain loved by younger generations as organic as snapchat (and even tried, but failed, to buy) and it turned out that Tiktok.
However, the FTC has a narrow definition of Meta’s competitive market, excluding companies such as Tiktok, YouTube and Apple Service from being considered flowers on Instagram and Whatsapp.
Investors did not seem surprised by the decision. Shares of the company, based in Menlo Park, Calif.
A coalition of media companies, including CBC / Radio-Canada, is calling for a Bureau competition to investigate Meta’s move to block news on Facebook and Instagram in Canada.
