Meta Asks Judge to Rule that FTC Failed to Prove its Monopoly Case
The gauntlet has been thrown by Meta for the FTC. In the court, the social media conglomerate is fighting against the FTC, asking a federal judge to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit alleging monopolistic practices. Meta argues that the very foundation of the case upon which layoffs have been sprung away with a mighty blow of a skeptic, for while they’ve laid out these grand allegations of social media dominance, they have hardly any proof. The courtroom showdown is going to offer a very dramatic clash between the Government and Prime Tech!
Washington D.C., 14 April: A dramatic courtroom trial continues as the FTC takes on Meta, formerly known as Facebook, in a serious antitrust case. Central to this landslide of accusations, the FTC accused Meta of strangling the competition, by way of buying Instagram and WhatsApp and thereby cultivating a monopoly in social media. The FTC wants to go back in time and undo acquisitions from about a decade ago-that would set a landmark on the future of social networking.
An urgent hasty end to Meta’s trial on the merits is fervently sought, with the social media giant trying to get a plea ruling on the existing evidence. Judge Boasberg could issue his ruling to grant Meta’s application for a fast trial-this would be a happy ending for the defendants-or deny it, thereby letting the litigation drudgingly crawl into June as Meta attempts to put on the defense.
A spokesperson for the FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
The FTC builds a case: Meta, then simply Facebook, allegedly swallowed Instagram and WhatsApp not for their innovation but to eliminate budding competitors. Think corporate Pac-Man, powered by CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s inner anxieties about their explosive growth, made manifest in emails that have been unearthed.
On Thursday, Meta claimed that all trial evidence shows WhatsApp never intended to compete with Facebook in social media markets. The tech giant said further that Zuckerberg knew of this well before the closing of the transaction. Furthermore, Meta claimed testimony showed an increase in Instagram growth after the purchase.
The defense put forth by Meta was to claim that the FTC just could not distinguish between social sharing apps like Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook, all purporting to cultivate that very close-knit feeling of friends and family, against TikTok, the very platform that Meta claims it has had to try to mirror in order to keep just afloat.
In an FTC 4-A-Discourse-1 Truth Bomb: X, TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit are virtual town squares where strangers congregate over common obsirvations, and do not simply accept being copies of each other, each platform offers its own flavor of connection.
“These social apps are all battling for your eyeballs. The prize? Your precious time and attention, which they desperately want to steal from rivals – especially those owned by Meta – by showcasing the most irresistible content their users create.”
With Meta’s evidence now presented, the stage is set for a showdown with the filing of the final briefs and closing arguments by both sides. Suspense strikes: Is Judge Boasberg going to grant Meta’s request, or will this set the scene for a spectacular culmination?
Once the gavel fall for an illegal monopoly finding against Meta, you would have had Buckle up for Act Two: the trial to ascertain the antidote to such dominance.
© Thomson Reuters 2025
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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