Mark Zuckerberg takes stand defending FTC antitrust lawsuit

WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg took the stand Monday to defend against an antitrust lawsuit brought by the federal government.

The case centers around the company, then Facebook, acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014. The government argues Meta has become too big, creating an uncompetitive social media landscape.

“The FTC is asking for a do over,” Cato Institute Senior Fellow Jennifer Huddleston said. “They’re saying they shouldn’t have approved those acquisitions. That this actually lead to Facebook, now Meta monopolizing the personal social networking market.”

If the FTC wins its case against the social media giant, Meta could be forced splinter, and dramatically revamp how social media works in the United States.

“If the government is successful, in what they’ve said they want to do, is actually break up Meta,” said Jessica Melugin with the Competitive Enterprise institute. “Break out Instagram. Break out WhatsApp from Facebook proper.”

Meta argues the social media landscape is extremely competitive with companies like X, YouTube and TikTok competing for users. They also argue consumers are not impacted by their control of multiple companies.

“Antitrust is supposed to be about were consumers harmed? Were consumers suffering at all. And in this case, you’re talking about a bunch of free products that consumers really like,” Melugin said.

This case was launched during the first Trump administration, but has changed slightly over the years. The Cato Institute argues antitrust cases move notoriously slow, and technological advances could render the case obsolete, or change its focus.

“You have an initial trial phase,” Huddleston said. “You’re likely to have a set of appeals regardless of the outcome. This has been going on already for some time.”

The FTC has filed a similar antitrust suit filed against Google.

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