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A trial in the historic antitrust case against the social media giant Meta is starting in Washington on Monday.
The American competition and the consumer watchdog alleys that Meta, who already owned Facebook, bought Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 to eliminate competition, actually giving itself a monopoly.
The FTC examined and approved these acquisitions but is committed to monitoring the results. If the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wins the case, it could force the meta-PDG Mark Zuckerberg to sell Instagram and WhatsApp.
Meta previously said that he was sure he would win and that the experts had told the BBC that he is likely to argue that Instagram users had a better experience since she had been taken care of.
“The argument (of the FTC) is that the acquisition of Instagram was a way to neutralize this increasing competitive threat to Facebook,” said Rebecca Haw Allensworth, professor of antitrust at the Vanderbilt Law School.
Ms. Allensworth says that the own words of Mr. Zuckerberg, including those of her emails, could offer the most convincing evidence at the trial.
“He said it was better to buy than to compete. It is difficult to become more literal than that,” said Ms. Allensworth.
Meta, on the other hand, is likely to argue that intention is not particularly relevant in an antitrust case.
“They will say that the real question is: are consumers better because of this merger?” She said. “They will bring a lot of evidence that Instagram has become what it is today because it has benefited from Facebook’s property.”
Mr. Zuckerberg and the former head of the company’s operation, Sheryl Sandberg, should both be testified during the trial, which could take place for several weeks.
Changing policy
The case, FTC C Meta, was filed during the first administration of American president Donald Trump but risks politicizing during his second term.
Mr. Zuckerberg put pressure on Trump in person so that the FTC abandons the case, according to the Wall Street Journal.
When asked by the BBC to confirm this report, Meta circumvented the question but said in a statement: “FTC prosecution against Meta defies reality.”
“More than 10 years after the FTC examined and erased our acquisitions, the action of the commission in this case sends the message that no agreement is really final,” Meta spokesperson told the BBC.
Relations between Mr. Zuckerberg and Trump had been icy in part because Trump was excluded from Meta’s social media platforms after the American Capitol riot in January 2021.
Since then, the relationship has somewhat thawed.
Meta contributed $ 1 million (£ 764,400) to the Trump inaugural fund and, in January, announced that the boss of the UFC UFC championship (UFC), Dana White, an ally of near Trump, would join his board of directors.
The company also announced in January that it removed the independent verifications of the facts.
“A very clear message”
President Trump’s move to dismiss two FTC commissioners in March is also suspended during the case.
As Democrats, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya were in the minority at the five -seat commission.
Until Wednesday, only two seats of these seats were filled, both by the Republicans. Another republican was confirmed Thursday by the Senate.
Slaughter and Bedoya – who continue the Trump administration to be reinstated – say that the decision to push them was supposed to intimidate.
“The president sent a very clear signal not only to us, but also to President Ferguson and the commissioner (Melissa) Holyoak that if they do something he does not like, he could dismiss them too,” Slaughter told the BBC in a recent interview.
“So, if they do not want to do any service for its political allies, they are also on blocking,” said Slaughter.
Slaughter and Bedoya both expressed their alarm in the face of recent relationships on Zuckerberg lobbying efforts.
“I hope there is no political interference,” Bedoya told BBC.
Reuters
The FTC did not respond to a request for comments from the BBC.
Ferguson, who was appointed president of the FTC by Trump, recently told Verge that he “obeyed legal orders” when he had been asked what he would do if the president ordered him to drop a trial like that against Meta.
Ferguson added that he would be very surprised if something like it happened.
The FTC is considered a key antitrust guard dog. In recent years, he has returned hundreds of millions of dollars to fraud victims, in addition to adopting laws prohibiting junk food and subscription traps.
But at the start of the meta-process, it is among the many independent regulatory agencies that the administration seems to brake.
President Ferguson is also recently quoted by reaffirming his conviction that independent regulatory bodies are “not good for democracy”.
The “difficult battle” of the FTC
FTC V Meta begins like another major antitrust case – USA V Google – between what is called the remedy phase.
The Ministry of Justice won the first phase of this case last summer when Judge Amit Mehta noted that Google has a monopoly in online research, with a market share of around 90%.
Last month, the DOJ reiterated a request made during the Biden administration that a court broke the Google research monopoly.
The case of the FTC against Meta will be more difficult to prove, explains Laura Phillips-Sawyer, associate professor of business law at the University of Georgia.
“I think they have a real difficult battle,” said Ms. Phillips-Sawyer about the FTC.
“They have a long road before any consideration of disinvestment of Instagram or WhatsApp is considered.”
Indeed, in relation to online research, there is more competition in the space of personal network services in which META operates, said Ms. Phillips-Sawyer.
Meta in a press release indicates that evidence at the trial “show what each 17 -year -old in the world knows: Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp compete with Tiktok, YouTube, X, Imessage and many others belonging to Chinese”.
