The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) suffered a significant defeat in its antitrust lawsuit against Meta Platforms, as Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp did not violate the Sherman Act. The FTC's case relied on defining a "Personal Social Networking" market that included Facebook and Instagram but excluded rivals like TikTok and YouTube, arguing the latter were "passive entertainment".
Judge Boasberg rejected the FTC's market definition as artificial, noting the "fluid, cross-platform reality" of the modern internet where services like TikTok compete fiercely for user attention. The Court found the exclusion of these competitors fatal to the claim of monopoly power. Additionally, the Judge dismissed the "buy or bury" narrative, ruling that the FTC failed to prove Meta's dominance was the result of acquisitions rather than its own innovations, effectively validating the difficulty of unwinding mergers years after they are consummated.
Source: Democracy Now