Meta Shows Strong Defense to FTC’s Antitrust Lawsuit

There is something perverse about the Biden administration’s willingness to ban TikTok even as it is arguing that Meta Platforms, whose Instagram is one of TikTok’s biggest rivals, holds “monopoly power” in social media. That contradiction came to mind when we read Meta’s court filing on Friday, asking a court to toss out the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Meta. The filing highlights how Meta has had to retool its operations to respond to TikTok’s surging popularity, in part by launching Reels. Donald Trump wasn’t wrong to point out the potential of a TikTok ban to further empower Meta. 

That’s just one conclusion to be drawn from today’s filing, much of which was redacted, as the company apparently wants to stop the public learning anything really juicy about its internal workings. We did learn that Instagram’s revenue was around $32 billion in 2021, or 27% of Meta’s total, and on track to be slightly higher in 2022. Just as interesting, though, was the lawsuit’s quotes from the co-founders of both Instagram and WhatsApp. The citations suggest clearly that both apps grew much faster as part of Meta than they would have if they had stayed independent. The comments undercut one of the FTC’s key arguments, which is that Meta (then Facebook) bought Instagram and WhatsApp because the leadership realized “it lacked the business talent required to maintain its dominance amid changing conditions” and decided to simply buy up its rivals.