←back to thread

Meta antitrust trial kicks off in federal court

(www.axios.com)
431 points c420 | 2 comments | 14 Apr 25 13:18 UTC | HN request time: 0.078s | source
Show context
henryfjordan ◴[14 Apr 25 19:16 UTC] No.43685057[source]▶
> "The FTC's lawsuit against Meta defies reality. The evidence at trial will show what every 17-year-old in the world knows: Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp compete with Chinese-owned TikTok, YouTube, X, iMessage and many others," Meta spokesperson Chris Sgro said in a statement.

Everyone knew at the time that Facebook bought Instagram because it threatened Facebook's dominance, and hindsight shows that exactly that happened. There's a huge swath of people that dropped off FB and now use Insta, but Meta owns both. It was a great move but it was absolutely anti-competitive at the time.

replies(19): >>43685508 #>>43685515 #>>43685646 #>>43685767 #>>43685806 #>>43685820 #>>43686547 #>>43686628 #>>43686655 #>>43687439 #>>43687599 #>>43688044 #>>43688162 #>>43688335 #>>43688415 #>>43689802 #>>43689816 #>>43690767 #>>43703847 #
unreal37 ◴[14 Apr 25 19:59 UTC] No.43685646[source]▶
The government is claiming that Facebook bought Meta and Whatsapp because it couldn't compete with them.

Is that illegal? I don't understand! Every company that buys another company buys it because it adds something to their business. It's a ridiculous claim.

replies(4): >>43685704 #>>43685736 #>>43685776 #>>43685908 #
1. bakugo ◴[14 Apr 25 20:23 UTC] No.43685908[source]▶
> Every company that buys another company buys it because it adds something to their business.

The point is that they didn't acquire those companies to add to their business, they acquired them because their continued independent existence detracted from their business. Also known as competition.

replies(1): >>43694511 #
2. cloverich ◴[15 Apr 25 15:46 UTC] No.43694511[source]▶
What are you basing that on? Instagram is clearly their preferred app at least in the US. It definitely bolstered their business. And they obviously invested heavily into it post acquisition.

I dislike meta but wouldnt call their ownership of instagram anti competitive monopolistic.