Meta goes to trial to avoid a breakup of Instagram and WhatsApp
1 min read
Summary
On 14 April the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will seek to unwind Meta’s purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014 respectively on the grounds that the company squashed competition and illegally monopolised the market for personal social networking services.
The FTC’s case will revolve around evidence of anticompetitive intent shown by Meta at the time of the acquisitions.
The judge will need to decide whether Meta had monopoly power in a relevant market and if it abused that power, with the potential remedies for such a finding including Meta being broken up.
The case comes alongside increasingly frequent calls for Big Tech companies to be broken up, as well as a rising bipartisan populist movement against such companies.
It is also of existential importance to Meta, as the judge’s ruling could result in Instagram and WhatsApp - its most culturally relevant and the world’s most used messaging services - being spun off.