Meta to appear in antitrust court for buying Instagram and WhatsApp

Facebook owner Meta Platforms must stand trial on a lawsuit filed by the US Federal Trade Commission seeking to break it up over allegations that it bought Instagram and WhatsApp to stifle growing social media competition, a judge in Washington ruled on Wednesday, UNN reports citing Reuters.

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Judge James Boasberg largely rejected Meta's motion to dismiss the case filed against Facebook in 2020 during the Trump administration, arguing that the company acted illegally to maintain its monopoly on the social network.

Meta, then known as Facebook, overpaid for Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 to address emerging threats instead of competing on its own in the mobile ecosystem, the FTC alleges.

Boasberg upheld the statement, but rejected the FTC's claim that Facebook was strengthening its dominance by restricting third-party app developers' access to the platform unless they agreed not to compete with its core services.

"We are confident that the evidence in court will show that the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp was good for competition and consumers," a Meta spokesperson said on Wednesday.

FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar said that the case, initiated under the Trump administration and finalized under Biden, "is a bipartisan effort to limit Meta's monopoly power and restore competition to ensure freedom and innovation in the social media ecosystem.

At trial, Meta will not be allowed to argue that the acquisition of WhatsApp increased competition by strengthening its position against Apple and Google, Boasberg ruled.

The date of the trial has not been set.

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Meta urged the judge to dismiss the entire case, saying that it was based on a too narrow view of social media markets and did not take into account competition from ByteDance's TikTok, YouTube, Google's X, and Microsoft's LinkedIn.

The case is one of five high-profile lawsuits brought by the US antitrust regulators FTC and the Department of Justice against Big Tech.

Amazon.com Inc and Apple are both on trial, and Google Alphabet is facing two lawsuits, including one in which a judge recently ruled that the company illegally hindered competition among search engines.