The definition is directed to the court due to the alleged illegal monopoly that it can force it to sell Instagram, WhatsApp

Facebook Parent Meta faces a high -risk experience in Washington starting on Monday based on the demands that they have built illegal monopoly on social media by spending billions of dollars to obtain Instagram and WhatsApp, if the anti -monopoly port in the United States seeks to relax deals.

The acquisitions have been aimed at more than a decade for eliminating competitors who can threaten Facebook status as a social media platform for users to communicate with friends and family, and the US Federal Trade Committee claims. The case was filed in 2020, during the first term of US President Donald Trump.

FTC is trying to force Meta to restructure or sell parts of its business. This means that if the committee is successful, Instagram and WhatsApp can be considered from Meta to become their own entities again.

In a blog on Sunday, Jennifer NewSide, the chief legal official in Meta, described the weak and deterrent issue of technological investment.

“It is absurd that FTC tries to disintegrate a wonderful American company at the same time as the administration is trying to save the Chinese -owned Ychuk,” she wrote.

The issue pose an existential threat to Meta, which earns some estimates about half of the Instagram advertising revenues, with the public also giving the first real scale for the strength of the new Trump administration with its promises to take over the large technology.

Meta has conducted regular initiatives to Trump since his election, where he photographed the policies of the content that Republicans said the Republicans had said control and donation of one million dollars to install Trump. The CEO of Meta Mark Zuckerberg has also visited the White House several times in recent weeks.

“FTC in TROMP-Vance cannot be more willing to this trial,” said Joe Simonson’s spokesman for this trial, adding: “The blessing of some of the most powerful and smart lawyers in the country working around the clock.”

WhatsApp and Instagram Facebook helped transfer his business from desktop computers to mobile devices, staying common among young generations as competitors such as Snapchat (who also tried, but failed to buy) and has emerged Tiktok.

However, FTC has a narrow definition of Meta’s competitive market, with the exception of companies such as TIKTOK and YouTube and Apple Correspondence Service considered competitors to Instagram and WhatsApp.

“FTC is already enjoying the difficult task, whether it is looking at 10 years, five years ago or today, from trying to determine what is the market we are talking about in a sufficient way so that it can show that Meta has a lot of strength in this market,” said Paul Swanson, a lawyer for the fight against the lawyer, Netherlands and Hart.

“I think this challenge has become more difficult with the passage of years and we see more and more potential competitors in social media spaces.”

Zuckerberg is expected to witness

Zuckerberg is expected to be experiencing the experiment, as he will face an interrogation about emails in which he suggested obtaining the Instagram image sharing application as a way to neutralize a potential Facebook competitor, and expressed concern that the encrypted messaging service can grow WhatsApp into a social network.

Meta argued in the court papers that its Instagram purchases in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 had benefited from users, and that the previous Zuckerberg data is no longer related to a fierce competition from Tiktok’s Tiktok, Google’s YouTube and Apple.

How users spend time on social media, and whether they consider services to be switched, will be essential in the case. Meta will indicate an increase in traffic to Instagram and Facebook while the Summary TIKTOK is closed in January as evidence of competition, according to court records.

FTC Meta claims a monopoly on the platforms used to share with friends and family, where its main competitors are launched in the United States at Snap Snapchat and MEWE, a small social application that focuses on privacy launched in 2016.

Platforms where users broadcast content to strangers based on common interests, such as X, Tiktok, YouTube and Reddit, cannot be replaced.

The American boycott judge, James Pasperg, said in the rule of November that although the Federal Trade Committee has sufficient evidence to move forward, the agency “faces difficult questions about whether its claims can stand up to the trial crucible.”

The experiment is scheduled to extend to July. If FTC wins, it must be proven in a second experience that measures such as Meta forced to sell Instagram or WhatsApp will re -compete.

Instagram is of special value for Meta

Instagram loss in particular may be disastrous for the bottom summary.

Although Meta does not issue the application’s revenue numbers, Emarketer for advertising research company in December is that Instagram will generate $ 37.13 billion this year, which slightly exceeds half of the American advertising revenues.

Instagram also creates revenues for each user more than any other social platform, including Facebook, according to Emarketer.

WhatsApp has so far contributed to a fragment only in the total Meta revenue, but it is the largest application for the company in terms of daily users, and enhances efforts to earn money tools like Chatbots. Zuckerberg said that the “commercial messages” services are likely to pay the next wave of growth of the company.

The case is one of five where the Ministry of Justice in the Federal Trade Committee accuses major technology companies of preserving illegal monopolies.

Amazon and Apple are prosecuted, Google Alphabet faces a lawsuit, including another experience next week in the government’s attempt to force Google to sell its vine browser.