Court rules in favor of Meta Platforms in landmark antitrust case

(AFP) A federal judge dismissed an antitrust lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against Meta Platforms, parent company of Facebook, and ruled that the tech giant has not demonstrated monopoly power in the market and is not currently abusing dominance.

The ruling represents a victory for the company after a five-year legal battle that began when the agency sued Facebook over its acquisition of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014.

Judge James Boasberg, of the federal district court in Washington, concluded that Meta faces sufficient competition from rivals TikTok and YouTube, which prevents the company from exercising a monopoly in the social networking market.

The FTC argued that Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat competed in a different market than video entertainment platforms such as TikTok and YouTube.

However, the judge found that distinction does not apply to the current social networking landscape.

"Meta does not have a monopoly in the market," the judge stated, noting that Facebook and Instagram have morphed in recent years to primarily show users algorithmically recommended short videos that are nearly identical to TikTok's core offering.

The court found that Americans now spend only 17% of their time on Facebook viewing content from friends, and that figure drops to just 7% on Instagram.

The ruling represents a setback for antitrust advocates in the U.S., who have taken action against major tech companies in recent years, with mixed results in court.

The government has brought five major cases against tech companies, two against Google and lawsuits against Apple and Amazon.