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Meta antitrust trial kicks off in federal court

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431 points c420 | 2 comments | 14 Apr 25 13:18 UTC | HN request time: 0.424s | source
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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.

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paxys ◴[14 Apr 25 20:09 UTC] No.43685767[source]▶
If everyone indeed "knew at the time" then why did the FTC allow the acquisition to go through in a 5-0 vote?
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michaelt ◴[14 Apr 25 22:11 UTC] No.43686843[source]▶
The government just kinda forgot that competition law existed for a few decades.

They were busy doing things like bringing freedom and democracy to Afghanistan, having a financial crisis, stuff like that. Very important stuff. Social media? Oh yes I think my grandson told me about that.

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1. noslenwerdna ◴[14 Apr 25 22:30 UTC] No.43686997[source]▶
I didn't know the FTC got involved in Afghanistan
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2. RicoElectrico ◴[14 Apr 25 23:30 UTC] No.43687417[source]▶
FTC does what the public opinion expects them to do.