What smart people are saying about Meta’s argument that it’s not a social media monopoly

• The FTC took Meta to trial, arguing it’s a monopoly and should sell off Instagram and WhatsApp.

• Meta says the true “market” where it operates is bigger and more competitive than what the FTC says.

• Antitrust law experts say the FTC has a tough battle but a real shot at winning.

The Federal Trade Commission’s blockbuster trial against Meta kicked off in court this week, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg taking the stand as the first witness.

Government lawyers are trying to persuade a federal judge to force Meta to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp. They argue that, along with Facebook, the acquisitions of those apps were part of an illegal scheme that allows Meta to illegally dominate the “personal social networking services” market and help the company act as an illegal monopoly.

In court, Meta argues that the true market where it operates is much bigger than what the FTC claims. Far from being an illegal monopoly, Meta fiercely competes with TikTok and YouTube, Zuckerberg says, and its apps have evolved along with user habits. Besides, it says, its products are free.

Here’s what some of the smartest people in antitrust law are saying:

The judge in the case has built a steep hill for the FTC to climb if it wants to win, Kovacic, who served as an FTC commissioner in the George W. Bush administration, said.

In a previous ruling, US District Judge James Boasberg was skeptical about the FTC’s argument that TikTok, YouTube, or X shouldn’t be considered part of the same market as Meta’s products, according to Kovacic. The trial decision would come down to the evidence from Meta’s internal records, Kovacic said.

“He said that the FTC, in some ways, was pushing existing law to its limits, and that he’d be looking very closely at what Meta had to say about the dimensions of the market, its position in that market, and about its justifications for the acquisitions,” said Kovacic, who now teaches antitrust law at George Washington University’s law school and has advised over a dozen countries on consumer protection law. “So I read in that earlier opinion some skepticism about the FTC’s case.”

The case is basically “a toss-up,” said Rebecca Allensworth, a Vanderbilt University law school professor who teaches an antitrust law class focused on Big Tech. She believes the case “is going to be won or lost” on the definition of the market where Meta competes. But it’s clear, she says, that Meta meets the definition of a “monopoly power.”

“The monopoly power question really ought to be answered according to whether or not Meta’s customers feel locked in, and whether they really feel like they can give up Facebook or if they will just put up with the equivalent of higher prices — addicting products on Facebook, lots of ads, all the sort of bad things,” Allensworth said. “And I think we have plenty of evidence of that. We would call that direct evidence of monopoly power.”

Allensworth believes that the judge may balk at the FTC’s proposed remedy of forcing Meta to divest from WhatsApp and Instagram, and might give the company a pass.

“Because that’s such an obvious remedy, it might implicate the merits case that comes before,” Allensworth said. “Because if a judge is not prepared to do that, a judge might not want to find liability.”

“Meta will end up settling the case,” says Peter Cohan, a strategy and entrepreneurship professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough’s School of Business and Babson College. He believes the FTC’s argument — that Meta’s acquisitions stifled competition by eliminating potential rivals — is more convincing than Meta’s defense.

While the company claims it faces stiff competition and doesn’t charge users, Cohan says its dominant hold on digital advertising is the real issue.

Despite pointing to TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat as major challengers, Meta’s market power in ad spending paints a different picture. By some estimates, Cohan says, Meta is projected to have a significant market share in social media, with Facebook and Instagram combined accounting for 36.3% and 27.5% of ad spend respectively. YouTube is also a major player, with 15.5% of ad spend. TikTok, while growing rapidly, has a smaller share, at 9.5%,

If the FTC wins, Meta will likely appeal, Cohan says, but he doesn’t rule out a negotiated outcome. “It might settle by spinning off Instagram,” he says. A loss could also have ripple effects across the tech industry: “Google could also be more likely to lose and reach a divestiture settlement.”

The Biden-era FTC chair, who shepherded the lawsuit after the agency sued Meta in the waning days of the first Trump administration, told CNN that the FTC can prove the company is a monopoly because it makes its products worse.

“Facebook has been significantly increasing the number of ads that it pushes to users, even though that makes the service worse,” Khan said. “And that has not led it to suffer consequences in the marketplace — which itself is a marker of its monopoly power.”

The Susman Godfrey partner, who’s represented Yale University, Alaska Airlines, and Neiman Marcus, thinks the FTC could win if it persuades the judge that the “personal social networking” market still exists today, not just when Meta bought Instagram and WhatsApp more than a decade ago.

“Meta seems to concede it still has a monopoly position in personal social networking,” Barnett wrote in an email. “Therefore, if Judge Boasberg accepts the FTC’s definition of the relevant market — despite the rise of TikTok, YouTube, and iMessage — the FTC will win the crucial point. Only the question of remedy will remain.”

“I like the FTC’s chances,” he continued. “The bells and whistles of TikTok, etc., strike me as critical for a minority of social media mavens but at best optional for most.”

“This case makes a lot of presumptions about how the businesses of Instagram and WhatsApp would have evolved,” said Jennifer Huddleston, a senior fellow in technology policy at the Cato Institute.

She said that predicting how social media would have developed without Meta’s acquisitions is inherently difficult and that both deals were approved by regulators at the time.

Huddleston also questioned the government’s narrow definition of the market. In her view, Meta faces real competition.

“Gen Z is choosing different platforms and video forward options,” she said, adding that apps like Signal and traditional SMS also compete with WhatsApp in the messaging space.

If Meta loses, Huddleston said users could feel the impact. A breakup could limit the ability to cross-post content between apps, while smaller companies might struggle to maintain services or invest in safety tools. It could also “send a chilling effect on mergers and acquisitions in the tech industry more generally,” with consequences for both companies and consumers, she said.

The founding partner of Shinder Cantor Lerner, who’s litigated numerous antitrust cases, thinks the passage of time has made the FTC’s case more difficult to win.

“The FTC is off to a strong start, with excellent evidence revealing Meta’s concerns about maintaining its market position with nascent competition from Instagram and WhatsApp,” she said. “An ultimate win, however, will be challenging given the decade that has passed since those acquisitions. In my view, with a trial expected to last into July, it is really too close to call in these early days of testimony.”

“Building a new app is hard,” the Meta founder and CEO said on the witness stand.

Zuckerberg, explaining why his company purchased Instagram, said that Meta had developed numerous homegrown apps over the years that had died on the vine. It was easier, he said, to simply purchase Instagram.

“I’m sure we could have built an app,” he added. “Whether it succeeded or not is a matter of speculation.”

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