The antitrust trial brought against Meta started this Monday in Washington on Monday in an electric atmosphere, with the first witness, Mark Zuckerberg himself. The challenge is major: if the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) won, the social networks giant could be forced to separate from two of its most emblematic, Instagram and Whatsapp platforms. A resounding case that threatens the Californian group’s growth model and could be a date in the history of digital regulation.
Why does this trial take place?
The judicial case originated under the Trump administration in 2020, when the FTC filed a complaint against Meta, still named Facebook at the time. The consumer protection agency accuses the company of having abused its dominant position to buy emerging competitors – Instagram in 2012 for $ 1 billion, WhatsApp in 2014 for 19 billion – and thus neutralize any competitive threat.
“Meta decided that the competition was too tough and that it would be easier to buy your rivals rather than being in competition with them,” said Daniel Matheson, representative of the FTC, as soon as the trial opened, in a crowded courtroom. According to him, these acquisitions aimed to “eliminate immediate threats” and protect Facebook’s hegemony on personal social networks.
At the bar, the defense of Mark Zuckerberg
Called to testify from the first day, Mark Zuckerberg recognized that social relations, historic heart of Facebook, remained a component of the activity, but that this dimension had greatly fell in the face of other uses. “This is definitely part of what we do, but this activity has not really progressed compared to other aspects,” he said. And to add: “Connections with relatives represent a less and less part of our organization. »»
Meta’s defense strategy is based on several axes: to demonstrate that the social media market is much wider than that of “personal social networks”, and that it is highly competitive. She claims that the targeted acquisitions have made it possible to grow these services, for the benefit of consumers. “Acquisitions engaged with the desire to grow and improve bought companies have never been illegal,” insisted Mark Hansen, Meta lawyer, qualifying Instagram and Whatsapp “successes in terms of consumers”.
Overwhelming emails for meta
To convince judge James Boasberg, the FTC is based in particular on a series of internal exchanges. In an email dating from 2012, made public from the start of the trial, Mark Zuckerberg wrote: “The potential impact of Instagram is really scary, and that is why we should consider paying a lot of money. »»
Reviews that strengthen the accusation of a reasoned takeover not by the desire for development, but by the fear of too threatening competition. Today, Instagram has around 2 billion users worldwide, and generates a significant share of Meta’s advertising revenues. WhatsApp, for its part, has established itself as an essential messaging application in key regions such as Europe, South America and India.
A prudent judge, an FTC under pressure
Judge James Boasberg, who will decide on the outcome of the trial without jury, has already warned the FTC: the agency will have to answer “difficult questions about the ability of its accusations to hold the road to the Court”. And for good reason: if it won a victory in 2023 against Google, found guilty of abuse of dominant position on the search engines market, the FTC also suffered several setbacks. She failed to block the acquisition of Within (virtual reality) by Meta or that of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft.
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In addition, one of the central points of the trial relates to the definition of the market concerned. For the FTC, Meta operates in the “personal social networks” sector, focused on exchanges with family and friends. This perimeter excludes platforms like Tiktok or Youtube, which would be more turned towards mass entertainment. Meta, for her part, rejects this categorization. The group argues that this vision does not reflect the evolution of digital uses and seeks to prove that the boundaries between messaging, entertainment and social sharing have become porous. This semantic and strategic battle could well determine the outcome of the trial.
