In the coming weeks, Meta will stand trial in an antitrust lawsuit that could have major consequences: Meta may have to sell Instagram and WhatsApp.
The lawsuit against Meta began on Monday in the Washington court. In the coming weeks, the company will have to answer for the social media empire it has built over the past decade. Among others, emperor of the empire Mark Zuckerberg will testify, alongside Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom.
Meta is currently one of the largest social media companies in the world. With Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, it oversees three of the most popular platforms. Plaintiff FTC, the American federal agency for consumer protection, believes that Zuckerberg has built a monopoly that needs to be dismantled.
If You Can’t Beat Them, Buy Them
Instagram and WhatsApp were once independent, promising platforms. Meta bought Instagram in 2012, then still under its original name Facebook, for about a billion dollars, and two years later, WhatsApp was added for 19 billion dollars. A good deal in retrospect, as both platforms would be worth many times that amount today.
According to the FTC, Meta has nipped potential competition for Facebook in the bud by buying them out. As a result, the Meta empire today has no equal: combined, the three platforms account for more than five billion active accounts. Half the world’s population thus uses Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp. Smaller players no longer have a chance to compete in the social media business.
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In the Spotlight
To level the playing field again, the FTC proposes a series of measures. The most extreme proposal is to force Meta to sell Instagram and WhatsApp again. The company will certainly not agree to this. It points to the fierce competition from TikTok to show that the empire is not invincible. The American government has, so far with limited success, tried to halt TikTok’s advance.
The lawsuit against Meta will make clear which direction the Trump administration is taking regarding antitrust. Despite the tech CEOs’ open cozying up to the new power holders, the wind seems unfavorable for Big Tech. Google is also being put under pressure, with a forced sale of the Chrome browser as a possible outcome.