A trial in the landmark antitrust case against social media giant Meta kicked off in Washington on Monday, the BBC reported.
Lawyers for the US competition and consumer watchdog allege Meta unlawfully quashed rivals by purchasing Instagram and What’s App over a decade ago.
“They decided that competition was too hard and it would be easier to buy out their rivals rather than to compete with them,” the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawyer Daniel Matheson.
Meta countered that the lawsuit from the FTC, which reviewed and approved those acquisitions, is “misguided.”
Meta “acquired Instagram and WhatsApp to improve and grow them alongside Facebook,” the company’s attorney Mark Hansen argued.
A win by the FTC could force CEO Mark Zuckerberg break up the company.
Meta reported: On Monday April 14, trial will begin in the weak antitrust lawsuit brought by the FTC, attempting to undo the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp that it cleared over ten years ago. The FTC’s case ignores how the market actually works and chases a theory that doesn’t hold up in the real world.
Instagram and WhatsApp provide a model for what successful acquisitions can achieve: Meta has made Instagram and WhatsApp better, more reliable and more secure through billions of dollars and millions of hours of investment.
With features such as in-app messaging, live streaming, Stories and Reels, we have grown Instagram from a small app with an uncertain future into one that more than two billion monthly active users enjoy today, providing them with an engaging place to discover, connect and create.
In order for the FTC to win this case, they need to prove both that Meta has a dominant share in a properly defined product market the includes all competitors, and that the two acquisitions harmed competition and consumers. They are wrong on both claims.
NPR reported: The Federal Trade Commission’s blockbuster antitrust case against Meta kicks off Monday in a courtroom in Washington, D.C. It’s the cumulation of a nearly six-year investigation into whether the social media giant broke competition laws in acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp.
At stake is the future of Meta’s $14 trillion advertising business and the prospect of having to spin off its hugely popular services into separate companies — a corporate breakup the likes of which has not been seen since AT&T’s telephone monopoly was forced to split apart more has 40 years ago.
Lawyers for the FTC and Meta will deliver opening statements on Monday before the U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in a trial expected to stretch for seven to eight weeks.
Reams of evidence and dozens of witnesses will be scrutinized. The government plans to call CEO Mark Zuckerberg, former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, to the witness stand.