Meta Platforms Faces Lawsuit from US Federal Trade Commission Over Antitrust Concerns
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms, seeking to break up the company due to its acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp, which is deemed as a strategy to eliminate emerging competition in the social media landscape.
The FTC alleges that Meta, formerly Facebook, overpaid for Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 to eliminate emerging threats, rather than competing in the mobile ecosystem.
On the other hand, Meta had requested the judge to dismiss the case, arguing that it was based on a too narrow view of the social media market and ignored the competition from TikTok (ByteDance), YouTube (Google), X, and LinkedIn (Microsoft).
