The FTC and Meta are facing off in court
FTC/Meta: Why Social Media Apps Should Be Disintegrated and How to Discontinuate Their Role in the Social Media Industry
The trial is expected to involve vigorous debates about technical details. The Federal Trade Commission previewed that on Monday. The agency attorneys say that Meta controls 80% of the market for personal social networks.
Meta’s privacy protections have lapsed as a result of its monopoly status, according to regulators. To the FTC, a break-up would mean better social media apps for all of us. But Meta says the opposite: That a breakup would make each of its individual apps less integrated and worse for consumers.
Lawyers for the FTC and Meta will deliver opening statements on Monday before U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in a trial expected to stretch for seven to eight weeks.
Reams of evidence and dozens of witnesses will be scrutinized. The head of social networker and former COO,Adam Mosseri, is planning on testifying for the government.
The government argues the only way to restore competition to the social media marketplace is for Meta to be forced to unwind its purchase of both Instagram and WhatsApp. The government says divesting those apps will allow smaller social media companies compete for consumers and ad dollars and loosen Meta’s grip on the industry.
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Many executives in Silicon Valley have been in contact with the Trump administration. Zuckeberg has publicly praised Trump and donated to Trump’s inaugural committee, but has also made company-wide shifts that align with Trump’s priorities, such as rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Zuckerberg has also made several visits to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. The case unfolding for many weeks is what has led to the speculation that Trump could abandon the trial and settle with Meta. That said, the start of the trial does not take a settlement off the time. It is possible, though unlikely, that the two sides reach a settlement in the midst of the trial.
Hansen argued that the FTC’s case involves the “incoherent parsing of competition” to make the case that Meta is dominant, when it is merely vying for people’s attention in a crowded online world.
The broad strokes of these arguments have been outlined by lawyers in pretrial motions over the last 4 1/2 years, but on Monday, they were made before U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who will be presiding over the trial in Washington, D.C., for the next eight weeks.
It is the third time in recent years the federal government has hauled a Big Tech company to court seeking to split up parts of a Silicon Valley business.
The Department of Justice is against the sale of the popular Chrome browser. The phase of the trial that will focus on how the company must change itself to comply with the law is scheduled for April. And there is a second case pending against Google in which the government alleges that the company illegally monopolizes the market for online ads.
The legal actions against tech companies underscore the growing public and political backlash against the business practices of Silicon Valley, a skepticism that was amplified when tech critic Lina Khan headed the FTC. But even Republicans, and many top Trump officials, believe the tech industry power should be reined in.
Meta’s Facebook founder is ingATING himself with Trump in recent months. Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. The company paid Trump $25 million to settle a lawsuit over the suspension of his social media accounts. And Meta has made company changes that align with Trump’s priorities, including ending a fact-checking program and rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Meta and the FTC face off in court over monopoly claims: Andrew Ferguson says he does not intend to take our foot off the gas
Andrew Ferguson, Trump’s pick who now heads the agency, has brushed aside speculation that the case would be dropped, telling Bloomberg last month: “We don’t intend to take our foot off the gas.”
To make its case, the FTC cited Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s own words. In an internal email at the time of acquisition of the photo-sharing service, he wrote that he wanted to neutralize a potential competitor. The messaging service represents a big risk for the company and, according to an email written by Facebook founder Mark Zuck, in the year 2014.
The messages show how Meta used its size to crush alternative services, said the FTC attorney.
“They decided that competition was too hard,” he said in his opening statement. It would be easier to buy out their rivals than to compete with them.
Source: Meta and the FTC face off in court over monopoly claims
Meta’s monetization is not a monopoly, but it is a way of life for the U.S. to better
In his article, the author said that Meta is not a monopoly because it has never raised prices on consumers, and that rival apps also do not charge. If a company were to charge, its app would lose customers, driving down the amount of time people spend on their platform. The average American uses around 40 apps a month. “An app that loses minutes … potentially loses advertising revenue as well.”
The quality of Meta’s apps “has improved on every objective measure,” he said, pointing out Meta’s user growth over the years. People use more of something when it becomes better, he said: “That’s economics 101.”
