Meta wins antitrust case, judge rules company does not hold a social media monopoly
On Tuesday, November 18, a US federal judge dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s landmark antitrust lawsuit against Meta, ruling that the social media giant does not have a monopoly on the market.
The FTC accused Meta of illegally maintaining its dominance by purchasing Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, and argued that the deals were designed to neutralize competitive threats. The lawsuit, filed in December 2020, was one of the most high-profile antitrust cases against a Big Tech company.
Court says TikTok and YouTube provide “sufficient competition”
Judge James Boasberg of the federal district court in Washington concluded that Meta faces strong competition from TikTok and YouTube, preventing it from exercising its monopoly power.
“Meta has no monopoly in the relevant market,” Boasberg wrote, rejecting the FTC’s assertion that Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat operate in a separate space from video-first platforms.
Boasberg said the FTC ruled that the market definition no longer reflects how Americans use social media, noting that Facebook and Instagram have turned into platforms dominated by short-form videos similar to TikTok.
“Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube have therefore evolved to have almost the same core features,” the judge said, citing data showing that users view these platforms as substitutes.
The court highlighted that users now spend only 17% of their time viewing friends’ content on Facebook and only 7% on Instagram. Instead, most of the time is consumed by “Reels” suggested by artificial intelligence.
A decline in antitrust pressure against big tech
The dismissal marks a significant setback for U.S. antitrust regulators, who have intensified efforts to rein in the influence of big tech companies.
The FTC and the Department of Justice have launched five major lawsuits in recent years, including two against Google, and separate lawsuits targeting Apple and Amazon.
In September, a federal judge rejected the government’s request to halt Google’s search business, even though it found that Google operated its search business as an illegal monopoly.
