Still feeling uneasy about Meta’s acquisition of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, the Federal Trade Commission will be appealing a November ruling that cleared Meta of allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly in a market dubbed “personal social networking.”
The FTC hopes the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will agree that “robust evidence at trial” showed that Meta’s acquisitions were improper. In the initial trial, the FTC sought a breakup of Meta’s apps, with Meta risking forced divestments of Instagram or WhatsApp.
In a press release Tuesday, the FTC confirmed that it “continues to allege” that “for over a decade Meta has illegally maintained a monopoly in personal social networking services through anticompetitive conduct—by buying the significant competitive threats it identified in Instagram and WhatsApp.”
Meta seemingly can’t get in Trump’s good graces
Talking to press, FTC spokesperson Joe Simonson pointed out that the case against Meta originated during Donald Trump’s prior term, Reuters reported. Back then, Trump was frustrated with Facebook, claiming the company and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, were “anti-Trump” in 2017, the BBC reported. His frustrations only grew when Meta banned his Facebook and Instagram accounts in 2021.
Ahead of Trump’s second term, Zuckerberg has attempted to improve relations with Trump, donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund in a move the BBC reported was intended to “repair his and his firm’s relationship with Trump.” Last January, Meta also paid Trump $25 million to settle lawsuits over his Facebook and Instagram suspensions, NPR reported.
But these moves have seemingly not affected the FTC’s resolve to undo Meta’s alleged monopoly. On Tuesday, Simonson said the Meta crackdown remained a priority because the agency believes that “Meta violated our antitrust laws when it acquired Instagram and WhatsApp,” and “consequently, American consumers have suffered from Meta’s monopoly.”