Facebook’s antitrust lawsuit against the Federal Trade Commission update

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Since Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004, he has been the subject of several lawsuits regarding the site.

In 2012, Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion, and in 2014, it purchased WhatsApp for $22 billion. However, in an antitrust lawsuit filed in 2020, during President Donald Trump’s first administration, it was claimed that Facebook bought the two companies just to establish a social media monopoly.

Zuckerberg claims he saw value in the companies and bought them for that reason: “I thought that Instagram was better at [camera functions than Facebook], so I thought it was better to buy them.”

On April 14, the first day of the Federal Trade Commission vs. Meta (Facebook’s parent company) trial began, where Zuckerberg said, “(Users are) connected to a lot more groups and other kinds of things. The ‘friend’ part has gone down quite a bit, but it’s still something we care about.” He added that messaging enables users to share content with their friends.

On the second day of the trial, Zuckerberg testified, "Instagram integration ended up going very well; we were able to add way more value to Instagram than we would have expected. After that, we basically felt more confident that we could identify other social apps, potentially acquire them and grow them faster (than they would have on their own)." He argued that if Snapchat had accepted Facebook’s buyout offer in 2013, it would have amassed billions of users.

Zuckerberg has previously sent emails expressing his concerns that Instagram's rise is damaging Facebook's growth. The FTC is using these messages to support Facebook's buying of Instagram and WhatsApp to maintain its social media monopoly.

Prithvi Sudhakar is a third-year majoring in cybersecurity. To contact him, email pzs5683@psu.edu.