"The FTC's suit contended that Facebook, which later became Meta, overpaid to acquire Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 as part of a "buy or bury" strategy to eliminate competitors and protect what it alleged is a monopoly in social networking. The FTC argued that the only way to resolve Meta's alleged monopoly power was for the company to be broken up. In legal filings, government lawyers said a judge should order Meta to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp into separate companies, to give rivals more room to compete and users more choices."
""Believing that the only constant in the world was change, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus posited that no man can ever step into the same river twice. In the online world of social media, the current runs fast, too," Boasberg wrote. "The landscape that existed only five years ago when the Federal Trade Commission brought this antitrust suit has changed markedly. While it once might have made sense to partition apps into separate markets of social networking and social media, that wall has since broken down.""
A federal judge ruled that the FTC failed to demonstrate Meta holds a monopoly in social media and denied the requested breakup of Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC sued Meta five years earlier, alleging that purchases of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 reflected a "buy or bury" strategy to eliminate rivals and entrench monopoly power. Government lawyers sought orders to spin off the apps to increase competition and user choice. Judge James Boasberg cited significant shifts in the digital landscape, identified new competitors and YouTube's rising dominance, and concluded that boundaries between social networking and social media have blurred.
Read at www.npr.org
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