After years of pushback from the Federal Trade Commission over Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, Meta has defeated the FTC’s monopoly claims.
In a Tuesday ruling, US District Judge James Boasberg said the FTC failed to show that Meta has a monopoly in a market dubbed “personal social networking.” In that narrowly defined market, the FTC unsuccessfully argued, Meta supposedly faces only two rivals, Snapchat and MeWe, which struggle to compete due to its alleged monopoly.
But the days of grouping apps into “separate markets of social networking and social media” are over, Boasberg wrote. He cited the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who “posited that no man can ever step into the same river twice,” while telling the FTC they missed their chance to block Meta’s purchase.
Essentially, Boasberg agreed with Meta that social media—as it was known in Facebook’s early days—is dead. And that means that Meta now competes with a broader set of rival apps, which includes two hugely popular platforms: TikTok and YouTube.
“The Court simply does not find it credible that users would prefer the Facebook and Instagram apps that existed ten years ago to the versions that exist today,” Boasberg wrote.
😐
Sometimes it feels like these people aren’t alive. Like what do you mean??
If it’s dead, why are fb and insta still around? Do us all a favor and nuke them.
I think most people are using those to consume content from people they don’t know.
Social media is dead because Meta killed it.
Maybe people have stopped posting as much… But I only stopped posting because the platform became filled with garbage and it’s not worth my time to log on. If I could still interact with friends and family like you could 10 years ago, I would probably still be posting things.
The judge is currently facing articles of impeachment, just in case anybody was wondering if he was up for sale or not.
Interesting that the idea social media is dead comes from people preferring to interact with strangers’ content than with their actual friends, combined with people actually posting less personal stuff themselves. I didn’t realise that was a thing! Very weird.
I should fund part of a ballroom
Alright, let me know when TikTok and YouTube let my posts reach all the people I grew up with before being harassed out of my home area by the cops and banned from Facebook. I’m pretty sure a lot of them still believe the rumor someone started saying I killed myself.
