The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of the USA has initiated a lawsuit against Meta, accusing the company of creating an illegal monopoly in social media by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp. The antitrust agency aims to prove the necessity of overturning these deals. This was reported by Reuters.
According to the FTC, the acquisitions were intended to eliminate competitors that could threaten Facebook's status as the leading social media platform. The lawsuit was filed in 2020 during Donald Trump's presidency.
Meta's General Counsel Jennifer Newstead described the case in her blog as weak and detrimental to investment in technology.
"It's absurd that the FTC is trying to dismantle a major American company at the same time the administration is trying to save the Chinese TikTok," Newstead wrote.
Since Trump's election, Meta has consistently reached out to him, rejecting content moderation that Republicans consider censorship, and donating $1 million to Trump's inauguration. Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also visited the White House multiple times in recent weeks.
Zuckerberg is expected to testify in court where he will be questioned about emails in which he suggested buying Instagram to eliminate a potential competitor to Facebook, as well as expressing concerns that WhatsApp, a messaging service, could turn into a social network.
In court documents, Meta argues that the acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 were beneficial for users. The company also claims that Zuckerberg's previous statements have lost relevance given the current fierce competition from TikTok (ByteDance), YouTube (Google), and Apple's iMessage.
The FTC believes that Meta holds a monopoly position in the market for platforms that allow communication with friends and family. According to the agency, the main competitors of Meta in the USA are only Snapchat and MeWe, while services like X (Twitter), TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit, which focus on content distribution among strangers based on shared interests, are not viewed as direct competitors to Meta.
The trial is scheduled for July 2025. If the FTC wins, in the next phase, it will have to prove that the forced divestiture of Meta's assets, such as Instagram or WhatsApp, will indeed restore competition in the market.