FTC vs Meta trial starts, with potential to reshape social media landscape

The news: Meta’s antitrust trial kicks off today, where the social giant will face off with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

• The FTC claims Meta monopolizes the social networking market. It also alleges that these acquisitions were anticompetitive and allowed Meta to “neutralize” potential competitors.
• Meta argues that it’s not a monopoly, that those acquisitions fueled its growth, and that it faces strong competition from players like YouTube, TikTok, X, Apple, and more.

If the court agrees with the FTC, a separate trial could force Meta to divest Instagram and WhatsApp.

Looking back: When Meta purchased Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion, the app only had about 30 million users. WhatsApp was considerably bigger when Meta bought it for $22 billion in 2014, per Reuters, with over 450 million users.

• Because those acquisitions closed over a decade ago, the FTC may face a tall task proving its case.
• Meta will likely challenge the FTC’s definition of a monopoly. It could also point to the jump in Meta traffic and usage during TikTok’s brief outage in January to emphasize competition between the two companies.

Prime time: However, the FTC could benefit from fortuitous timing: This trial comes less than a year after a landmark antitrust ruling that declared Google is a monopoly in search and ads.

• That decision could pave the way for a judge to rule against Meta by disrupting laissez-faire deference to Big Tech.
• It also challenged the notion that market dominance through aggressive tactics is fair game.

Why does it matter? Instagram accounts for 37.4% of Meta’s global ad revenues, per our forecast. Divesting the platform would cause tens of billions in annual losses, worsening tariff-led market uncertainty that is driving down Meta stock.

Our take: The FTC, unlike the European Commission, doesn’t risk tariffs if antitrust penalties aggravate tensions with President Donald Trump. Still, it faces a high burden of proof and a long road to a ruling.

Splitting campaigns and content across multiple networks could help marketers hedge against potential changes in both Meta’s and TikTok’s ecosystems.