The long-awaited antitrust trial between Meta and the Federal Trade Commission kicked off on April 14th. Over about two months, DC District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg is hearing arguments about whether then-Facebook illegally monopolized the market for “personal social networking services” through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
The FTC first brought the case in late 2020. While it was initially thrown out by the judge, he let an amended version move forward after the government beefed up details about why it thinks Meta is a monopoly. This phase of the trial will help the judge determine if Meta is liable for breaking antitrust law. If he finds that to be true, he’ll later rule on how those harms should be remedied. The FTC is pushing for Instagram and WhatsApp should be spun off.
This is the third US trial seeking to break up Big Tech in recent years, following the Justice Department’s two separate cases against Google over its search and ad tech businesses.
Read below for all of our updates on the FTC v. Meta case.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
