ZUCKERBERG DISPUTES US ANTITRUST CASE IN TRIAL TESTIMONY – The trial could stretch into July and see Meta selling Instagram or WhatsApp
Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stand at a high-stakes trial in Washington over U.S. antitrust enforcers’ claims that the company spent billions of dollars to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp to fend off Facebook competitors.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is seeking to force Meta to restructure or sell Instagram and WhatsApp, testing President Donald Trump’s promises to take on Big Tech while posing an existential threat to a company that, by some estimates, earns about half of its U.S. advertising revenue from Instagram.
Meta has argued that its purchases of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 have benefited users and that Zuckerberg’s past statements are no longer relevant amid competition from ByteDance’s TikTok, Google’s YouTube and Apple’s messaging app.
How users spend time on social media and which services they consider interchangeable will be core to the case. Meta will argue that an increase in traffic to Instagram and Facebook during TikTok’s brief shutdown in the United States in January shows direct competition.
The trial could stretch into July. If the FTC wins, it would have to separately prove that measures such as forcing Meta to sell Instagram or WhatsApp would restore competition.
Amazon, Apple and Alphabet’s Google also face antitrust lawsuits by U.S. enforcers.
